Feedback (Variant #2) by Robison Wells review

Spoilers ahead for those who haven't yet read Variant!

Benson Fisher escaped from Maxfield Academy’s deadly rules and brutal gangs.

Or so he thought.

But now Benson is trapped in a different kind of prison: a town filled with hauntingly familiar faces. People from Maxfield he saw die. Friends he was afraid he had killed.

They are all pawns in the school’s twisted experiment, held captive and controlled by an unseen force. As he searches for answers, Benson discovers that Maxfield Academy’s plans are more sinister than anything he imagined—and they may be impossible to stop.

In Feedback, Robison Wells delivers all the answers you’ve been craving—with enough twists and turns to keep readers guessing until the very last page.

From Goodreads 

Talk about a wild ride! Feedback picks up right where Variant left off. You're still in the action & your adrenaline is pumping as hard as it can as you watch Benson & Becky try to escape the multitude of robots chasing them down. When they think they are finally safe at an encampment housing the real students, they find that they are just in another form of imprisonment; unable to move forward & unable to undo all that has taken place.

The reality of the situation is beyond grave for our protagonists. There are so many trials & tribulations that at times even I felt like giving up hope. Yet these teens stayed the course & followed their instincts to do what they thought was right & best for everyone involved. Intricate plans & devious plots must be laid with precision in order to deal the greatest blows to Maxfield in the hopes of saving as many people as possible.

Without a doubt, the twists & turns in this book will cause your head to spin and you will at times need to stop for a moment to truly take in what all has transpired. I truly believe that it what makes this series so great. Not only is it a whole new take on the idea of a "nightmarish boarding school," but it seems to have re-invented the conspiracy element that many books fail to address. I really enjoyed this aspect as it forced me to really consider everything that happened in the story.

With all that being said, I felt like there was a lot of talking & very little action going on in this book. Don't get me wrong, there needs to be a lot of talking considering the magnitude of what goes down, but it tended to catch me off guard when action suddenly sprang seemingly out of nowhere. That may have been intentional though.

I have to strongly recommend that you read this book if you've read Variant. If you haven't read that, then my review will wait patiently here until you come back yearning to hear what happened in Feedback. :)

ARC graciously provided by Around the World ARC Tours

Variant by Robison Wells review

Benson Fisher couldn't be more excited to have gotten the scholarship to Maxfield Academy. After bouncing from foster home to foster home he's finally getting the chance to really settle in somewhere & maybe have a normal teenage experience. Unfortunately that all goes down the drain as soon as he steps in the front doors. There are no teachers, there are no staff, there is razor wire & a tall fence surrounding the property and no one ever leaves. There are microchips in all the doors tied to each student's id & no one ever comes back from detention. Given all these circumstances, Benson finds himself very confused as to why all these teenagers are willing to stay. And then he starts to put things together.

No one here has family or friends. Nobody cares about these teens. And there is something supremely suspicious going on in regards to how things are run. There are 3 "gangs" at the school who bid on contracts for everything from grounds-keeping to security. So really, is it the other teens keeping everyone at the school... or is there someone higher up calling the shots? As Benson delves deeper into the troubling mystery surrounding this school, he's putting everyone in danger. The question is, who are they really in danger from & what is the worst that can happen?

Robison Wells has got a pretty good formula going in this book. Who could resist the rough & tough, down on his luck kid that refuses to take "no" for an answer? Benson has a bristly personality at best, but he is determined to convince everyone that things aren't as great as they seem & that everyone is being duped. Even more startling is just how well everyone seems to be taking their imprisonment. Granted they've all been there longer than Benson, but they've become complacent & complicit in their own restriction.

The dynamics between the 3 rival gangs really sets the tone for all character interaction. In a way, their divisions remind me of the gangs in S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. Society is very much like the Socs wherein they claim to uphold the law & be of better moral character and yet they dole out punishments that never seem to suit the crime. They take orders without question & believe in their mission.

Havoc resembles the Greasers because these characters do the dirty work that makes the school continue to function, but they enjoy causing mayhem. They toe the line in regards to rules, breaking minor ones that won't cause too much trouble, but never crossing over into major infractions.

What The Outsiders didn't officially have is a third group of misfits, in the case of Variant we have the Variants (Vs for short). This other group is just that, it is the remainder of people who don't really fit in well enough in either of the other groups to have joined them. Benson winds up in this group because he doesn't buy into either of the other groups' missions. The Vs are consistent & kind of free-thinking, while the others are pretty rigid in their tenets.

The dialogue left something to be desired, but what can you expect from miscreants in an unsupervised boarding school? I think the language was intentional, so I can't fault it. The best part though is the twist. And let me tell you, this one will make you do a double-take. Truly masterful, Variant is not one you'll want to miss!

ARC graciously provided by Around the World Tours