Denise

The stronger soldier succeeds where the weaker soldier failed. I will show The Program that I am the stronger soldier.

I really enjoyed the first book in this series and I looked forward to reading this installment so I was pleased to see that it was made available on NetGalley and requested it right away. I have to say that I was a bit disappointed by this book. After really loving the first book in the series and loving getting to follow Zach as he kicked ass yet still stayed complex, this book felt slow to start and lacked the a lot of the action and magic from the first book.

The first half of this book seemed really slow to me. Zach (or as he is called in this book "Daniel") is either trying to work his way close to Eugene Moore or is wandering around at Camp Liberty and I just kept waiting for some big action or something to happen. It was just a lot of "Do they trust me? Do they not trust me?"

The second half really did seem to pick up and I did get hooked in to the story. There was a bit of a twist regarding Zach's mission in the second half and I saw it coming from a mile away (or at least the main part of it). I enjoyed all the action towards the end and really enjoyed the internal conflict that Zach is having in regards to his role with The Program. It was also nice to get to read about Howard again.

The slowness of the first half of this book really seemed to drag the book down for me but the action of the second half and Zach's doubts and internal conflicts about The Program are what really saved this book for me. With all that went on right at the end and with the things that Zach has learned I am eager to read more of this series. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the galley.