Mila 2.0 by Debra Driza

About the book

Mila 2.0 is the first book in a series by Debra Driza. It was published by Harper Collins Children’s Books on 28^th March and the book is 272 pages long. Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an e-copy for review.

Synopsis (Taken from Goodreads.com)

Mila was never meant to learn the truth about her identity. She was a girl living with her mother in a small Minnesota town. She was supposed to forget her past —that she was built in a secret computer science lab and programmed to do things real people would never do.

Now she has no choice but to run—from the dangerous operatives who want her terminated because she knows too much and from a mysterious group that wants to capture her alive and unlock her advanced technology. However, what Mila’s becoming is beyond anyone’s imagination, including her own, and it just might save her life.

What I thought

I can’t say that I have read that many books about robots/ androids etc. but the few I have read were great. I absolutely loved the sound of Mila 2.0 as soon as I read the synopsis.

Mila and her Mum have just moved to a small town in Minnesota. Her Mum is quite overprotective and doesn’t really want Mila doing anything crazy or really, remotely fun. Mila doesn’t really understand this completely but just thinks it has something to do with her father being killed in a fire. However, when Mila does finally get into a little trouble, and something goes terribly wrong, she finds out that she is actually an android. As someone built and made for the government, Mila shouldn’t even be at school let alone living a life as a human. Mila’s mother stole her and ran away with her.

The beginning of Mila 2.0 was great. We get to learn about who Mila thinks she is and who she really is. I liked the small town setting and getting to see how Mila was with other girls at school. We also get introduced to some interesting characters such as Hunter although this is where I also have some problems. It isn’t long before Mila and her mum go on the run, afraid of being caught and at this point, Mila has struck up some form of romance with Hunter who I was beginning to love a bit myself. However, Hunter’s time in the book is cut extremely short and just when things with him were getting interesting.

Many other of the secondary characters (most of them actually) are extremely underdeveloped. Either they aren’t around long enough or they come in to the book nearer the end or we just don’t get to learn anything about them. Even Mila’s mother who is in the forefront of the plot for the most part is never really very interesting when she should have been. After all, she did help to invent Mila then ran across the country with her. But no, she’s just a pretty normal mum character who fails to impress.

The whole government thing was interesting though. As Mila was created, and not a human, she struggles to understand why her memories aren’t real because that’s exactly how they feel to her. Mila feels emotions and has dreams and eats. She really does believe that she is more than an android. I enjoyed the aspects of this book that was set within a government compound, a place where Mila 2.0 is put to the test. While Debra Driza’s characters were somewhat disappointing, she excels are writing exciting scenes full of action and suspense. From this point in the book, the action barely ever stops. There are fights, chases, secrets being revealed and much more.

The end of the book was also exciting and I loved the cliff-hanger. After everything that had happened to Mila up until this point, she has some tough decisions ahead of her but she is brave and really goes for what she wants. There were some great surprises at the end of Mila 2.0 and ones which made me want to read the next book. Actually, the surprises were mostly the only reason why I want to read the next book.

So, overall, I had mixed feelings about Mila 2.0 but I will still give the next book a chance.