Review: Mirror X (The Van Winkle Project #1) by Karri Thompson

Title: Mirror X
Author: Karri Thompson
Series: The Van Winkle Project
Book #: 1
Pages: 318
Reading Level: YA
Book Rating: 
Goodreads Rating: 3.60
Published: June 30th, 2014

Cassie Dannacher wakes up in a hospital over 1,000 years into the future after her space capsule is retrieved from space. She soon learns that 600 years prior to her arrival, the earth was struck by a plague, killing over half of the world’s population. Naïve and desperate, Cassie, who longs for home and is having trouble adjusting to the new, dictatorial 31st century government, is comforted by Michael Bennett, the 20-year old lead geneticist at the hospital where she was revived.

But why is Cassie in genetics’ hospital in the first place, and why do several of the people around her seem so familiar, including Travel Carson, the hot and edgy boy she is fated to meet? Soon she discovers there is a sinister answer to all of her questions – and that they want something from Cassie that only she can give.
Taschima's POV:

The beginning of Mirror X was slow and infuriating. It's main character, Cassie, was a little hard to stomach, her overcharged emotions and instant distrust of everything and everyone around her making her unlikable therefore making it hard for me to connect to her. The world building is flimsy, even though we get a sense of how the world is built much like Cassie we are kept in the dark about not only the outside view but the governmental structure. Overall Mirror X was a hard one to get through, but for some the second half of the novel (which is filled with elaborate escape plans, emotions that match the situation, and actual excitement) will make up for it's clunky start.

"This was a society that wanted to forget its past. I was a part of the past, a new plague in this world."

While I have to admit Cassie was put in an impossible situation I have to say I thought she could have been a more gracious character. She wakes up in the future and instead of being grateful that she is alive, or even grief stricken due to the loss of everybody she ever loved, the first thing she starts to do is complain. About... everything. Why can't I have a window? Where are the trees? I NEED GRASS AND THE SUN! She was an outdoorsy girl in the past but it was still annoying to hear her complain about these inconsequential things while she was recovering from being in a comatose state of over one thousand years. Oh, and immediately upon awakening she already had her eyes set on the cute doctor, I swear she gave him more page time than she gave her old family. I didn't really feel she was mourning the death of the ones she loved until much later in the story. But then, she gets better. Finally toward the half of the novel her emotions start making sense and matching the scenarios. She becomes less superficial I guess and starts to really think about not only herself but the entire world. Kudos, took you TOO FRICKING LONG.

The world... The parts I have trouble with I cannot discuss it without really giving away some of the juicy bits of the story. I just have to say that I had questions. First off, everywhere for every other thing there was a robot doing the job. There were basically almost no nurses, no janitors, etc. What do the people living in this society do for a living? Second...(view spoiler) Third, the whole story was riddled with coincidences. Too many, making it hard for me to keep myself from rolling my eyes.

The moral and ethical concerns tackled on this book were one of the things I most enjoyed. The question of thinking about sacrificing one person so that the rest of the human race may survive, the issues concerning privacy which led to a more safe society but which wasn't really free... Overall it was interesting the way the main character reacted to some of these issues versus the way that I would have reacted in her stead. 

Overall Mirror X failed in its execution. Cool ideas, really. It could have easily been a stand alone novel and I am not even sure I will be picking up the second novel really. The second half of the book might have been better than the beginning but the second book will need to improve upon plot, world building, and character development. I just don't see myself willingly picking up the sequel.