Review: Undertow (Undertow #1) by Michael Buckley

Title: Undertow
Author: Michael Buckley
Series: Undertow
Genre: Dystopian, Sci-Fi, Young Adult
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
Publication date: May 5th 2015
Pages: 384 (hardcover)
Source: Netgalley





Sixteen-year-old Lyric Walker's life is forever changed when she witnesses the arrival of 30,000 Alpha, a five-nation race of ocean-dwelling warriors, on her beach in Coney Island. The world's initial wonder, and awe over the Alpha quickly turns ugly and paranoid and violent, and Lyric's small town transforms into a military zone with humans on one side and Alpha on the other. When Lyric is recruited to help the crown prince, a boy named Fathom, assimilate, she begins to fall for him. But their love is a dangerous one, and there are forces on both sides working to keep them apart. Only, what if the Alpha are not actually the enemy? What if they are in fact humanity's only hope of survival? Because the real enemy is coming. And it's more terrifying than anything the world has ever seen.

Action, suspense, and romance whirlpool dangerously in this cinematic saga, a blend of Distric 9 and The Outsiders.

Goodreads

This book started off really strong and I thought that this was going to be a really good book. Unfortunately the book could not fulfill all his expectations for me. My interest in this book just fell because of the unbelievable romance and the lack of action at times.

The concept of Undertow is really intriguing and the overall storyline was good as well.  We can never know what leaves on every single place on earth. For all we know there might be other species living on this earth without us knowing. So the might as well live in the ocean. In Undertow a species from the bottom of the ocean, known as the Alpha’s, have invaded the shores of Coney Island. Most humans are not so happy with their arrival and if they had their way they would throw them back in the ocean like they do with fish. Tension is not only building between humans and Alpha’s but also between humans and humans and between Alpha’s and Alpha’s. It is only a matter of time before everything will explode.

Lyric Walker, a sixteen-year-old native of Coney Island, sees everything happen from the frontlines. Her whole world got turned upside down the day the Alpha arrived on the shorelines. Everything she once thought was true was a lie. Now she has to lie to the ones she loves to protect them. So being forced to hang out with the Alpha prince does not make her life any easier. I felt like the romance between Fathom and Lyric was underdeveloped. They only met a couple of times and most of the time they spend together they were upset with each other. So I did not understand were all these feelings for each other suddenly came from. It all came across as a bit unbelievable.

The description of the culture of the Alphas with their hierarchy systems, rules and rules was truly captivating. And I wished that the author had invested more in exploring this all. Now I felt left in the dark at times. I was left with so many questions after finishing this book. I can only hope that we get to learn more about the Alpha’s in the following books. Also I felt like the author left a lot of other things unexplained as well. He touched on a subject briefly and then never spoke of it again. I just kept wondering what had happened or what was going on. And I do not like that feeling at all.

Overall I enjoyed this book. It has a really interesting concept and the storyline was good. But I just have a feeling that it could have been worked out better in many different aspects. Still I am captured enough by Undertow to want to know what is going to happen next.

El