The Warning - Kristy Acevedo

The end is coming. There's no escape...or is there? The first in a compelling YA dystopian series for anyone who's ever felt like their life-their world-is on the brink of destruction.

Alexandra Lucas' anxiety disorder was enough to deal with before then mysterious holographic doors suddenly appeared throughout the world, heralding the end of the earth. The holograms claim to be humans from the future offering the promise of safety. A recording plays on loop: heed the warning and step through a portal-like vertex to safety...or stay and be destroyed by a comet that is on a collision course with the planet. But without the ability to verify their story, Alex is forced to consider what is best for her friends, her family, and herself.

Stay or go: everyone must make their own choice. With the deadline of the hologram's prophecy fast approaching, Alex feels as though she's living on a ticking time bomb. But the truth is much, much worse. And every decision comes at a price.

In this review I'll be talking about both books in the duology but I will separate my thoughts into two parts because the books are wildly different, in a good way though!

First up, The Warning. I found it to lean more on the psychological side because most of the time, the book focused on how the characters dealt with anxiety, newfound circumstances, relationships with others etc. While still offering a bit of sci-fi, this book remains character-focused. 

Being inside Alex's head was wild but so fascinating. I have not dealt with such severe anxiety so I can't comment on that part - if it was realistic or not, but I can tell the author took a careful approach and believe she did a good job.

The sci-fi part was generally subdued and we didn't learn much about the rifts until the very last chapter. Usually, I'd find this annoying, but the characters were so alive and I cared so much about them that I didn't even notice the lack of information. Not only that, the book also depicted a realistic behavior pattern in humans when facing the unknown - going wild and doing whatever they want. Some people became conspiracy theorists, some became criminals, some bunkered down etc. It was so realistic that I could definitely imagine people doing exactly what was described in this book if such a thing were to happen in real life. 

My rating: 4.5 stars.

Moving on to The Fallout. I'll keep this spoiler-free. The second book is much more sci-fi and has more action, more "other-worldly" stuff, more twists and much more information about these "aliens." In the end, I liked the first book a bit more. Here are the 2 things I disliked:

- all of the genius ideas that would change the course of the book came from the MC who is a teenage girl. I'm not undermining teens, but when you're part of a group of specialists - military, doctors, programmers, etc. who are also ADULTS, how come none of them came up with such ideas? It was obvious the author wanted the MC to be some sort of Special Leader but it was a bit too forced to me.

- the ending itself felt underwhelming. The "epic" revolution/fight scene that happened wasn't that epic but maybe that's just me 😂 It felt a bit rushed.

The things I liked:

- all the new characters had unique personalities and backstories

- the world-building was very interesting!

- the plot twists made sense...kinda. I mean, if I thought about it harder, I'd probably find some plot holes but I don't wanna because I liked where the story went lol

- if you ignore the lackluster "final boss fight" it actually wraps up nicely and the characters get a proper ending

My rating: 3.5 stars.

When looking at the series as a whole, I did enjoy it! It definitely falls into the more original category of YA sci-fi and it's not even that long.