ARC Review: NIGHT SPEED by Chris Howard
Title: Night Speed
Author: Chris Howard
Publisher: HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books
Release date: May 3rd, 2016
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Only those young enough can survive the pulse-pounding rush of tetra, a dangerous and addictive new drug that fuels a nine-minute burst of superhuman strength and speed. Alana West has been trained to use the drug so she can pursue the young criminals who abuse its power—criminals like the breakneck who nearly killed her kid brother.
On tetra, Alana is unstoppable. The rush makes her an explosive blur as she surges through New York City, battling to bring down breaknecks before they leave more people dead or injured in their wake. But with the clock ticking down to her eighteenth birthday, Alana will soon be too old for the rush...when just one more dose will prove deadly.
Supported only by her strong and steady handler, Tucker, Alana goes undercover, infiltrating an elite gang of breaknecks to stop the supply of their drug. But when Alana gets trapped on the wrong side of the law, she learns the breaknecks are not quite what they seem—especially Ethan, the artistic boy whose bottomless brown eyes seem to see the truth inside her. With her own dependency on tetra increasing, Alana must decide where her loyalties lie before the rush ends. Forever.
Night Speed was unexpectedly good. This is because at the beginning, I was really enjoying it A LOT. It was a bit slow, introducing the story and it took a while for you to get to that part where everything starts unfolding. And when that happened: MAAAAN, things changed.
For that last half, the scenes went by fast, just like you were on tetra (the drug in the book that makes you super strong and fast if you take it). The writing was great, there were some quotes that stayed with me and they were quite beautiful.
"And when I look up, Ethan's studying me, like I'm a book and he's making up his mind if he wants to turn the next page. And there's a tingle, a fleeting hot rush inside me. A desire for him to turn all my pages. To be the book he cannot put down."
I enjoyed the characters's arcs and different personalities. Alana's reason behind rushing is her little brother - who almost got killed by a criminal who rushes only to steal banks and cause chaos in the city. The relationship with her brother is so nice to see and the love and caring between them is so powerful. It's what drives Alana.
What I liked the most is the criminal group that Alana goes undercover. It's a group of fun personalities and cute character. It's a family. I loved Ethan as you can probably imagined by the quote at the beginning. JB, Rapunzel, Davis - they all had such good banter. Plus they really cared for each other and thought of themselves as family.
The Fourth Dimension is what they called this limbo place between reality and the drug's reaction. They fell so out of themselves but yet feel completed. These scenes were so cool to read and it was like you were running through the streets of New York. It's like you were The Flash and passing by so many things in just a little bit of time. I imagined all the colors just like the cover shows - I imaginet it all like that happening.
It does start a bit slow and I was quite bored at first, but if you want to give it a chance and get to those parts that feel that you're breathing hard and can't believe what's happening, I recommend you to stick around until the end.
Chris Howard was born and raised in England, and it was there he first began writing stories and songs. He now lives in Denver, Colorado, where he and his wife enjoy mountains, music, and mugs of good coffee. He is the author of NIGHT SPEED, as well as the ROOTLESS trilogy. Visit him online at chrishowardbooks.com.
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