I LOVED this book! It was just… wow… I can’t seem to get my brain together to write this review. I saw this book advertised about a year ago and I had read all of the hype that surrounded it. But when I looked on Amazon to buy it, it was £53 for the Audio CD and £35 for the hardcover. I was beat. But luckily, I waited and Nemesis was finally sent to me from the publisher so for that, I’ll be forever grateful!

It’s been happening since Min was eight. Every two years, on her birthday, a strange man finds her and murders her in cold blood. But hours later, she wakes up in a clearing just outside her tiny Idaho hometown—alone, unhurt, and with all evidence of the horrifying crime erased.

Across the valley, Noah just wants to be like everyone else. But he’s not. Nightmares of murder and death plague him, though he does his best to hide the signs. But when the world around him begins to spiral toward panic and destruction, Noah discovers that people have been lying to him his whole life. Everything changes in an eye blink.

For the planet has a bigger problem. The Anvil, an enormous asteroid threatening all life on Earth, leaves little room for two troubled teens. Yet on her sixteenth birthday, as she cowers in her bedroom, hoping not to die for the fifth time, Min has had enough. She vows to discover what is happening in Fire Lake and uncovers a lifetime of lies: a vast conspiracy involving the sixty-four students of her sophomore class, one that may be even more sinister than the murders.

What I loved the most about this book was that it just kept you guessing the whole way through. If you liked a character, something would happen and suddenly you wouldn’t like them and if you didn’t like a character, something would happen for you to like them. It was pure craziness. I was forever being turned this way and that to guess what was going on and when the mystery slowly revealed itself with the big finale reveal at the end, I was left in shock. I.DID.NOT.SEE.THAT.COMING. Some character behaviour at the end of Nemesis as well left me shook and I wanted to scream and cry but also punch the character.

Before I even started reading this book, I thought it was an adult book but once I started reading it, I realised that it was like a bridge between young adult and adult. It pretty much had all of the themes that are in a young adult dystopian novel, but the way that the book was written came across as very adult. However, on Goodreads, the category that this book has been put in the most is actually young adult so I’m guessing that’s what most of the audience classes it as.

“Why is that lunatic smiling?” Tack demanded, shaking his head. “He’s talking about the apocalypse like it’s a freaking One Direction concert. Weirdo.”

– Brendan Reichs, Nemesis

I also thought that the characters were really well written. Although I really didn’t like Tack. Even though he was Min’s best friend, I just couldn’t get past all of the sarcastic remarks and the snide comments that he made. He was just so irritating and I wanted to see him gone. Every time a sentence left his mouth, I just got automatically annoyed. And that went for Ethan as well… GOD! HE WAS SO ANNOYING! His whole friendship group was though to be fair. They knew they were popular and just thought that they owned the school because of it and thought that they could treat people how they wanted. No. Doesn’t work like that. There was some fantastic character development though of both Min and Noah but I liked Min the best. She wasn’t going to let what was happening to her control her life anymore and she risked her life over and over again to find out what was happening to her. She stuck-up for herself and for her friends, she was stubborn, she was loving, frightened but brave, she was everything that I look for in a YA female protagonist.

Overall, this is a fantastic sci-fi/thriller/dystopian/mystery novel. Yes, it is all of those things wrapped in one. But don’t be put off! That doesn’t mean that too much is happening at once and it’s confusing; it isn’t! It just has elements of all of those genres. Now that I’ve finished Nemesis, I cannot wait for Genesis (book two) to come out! I need it in my life, and it doesn’t come out until March 2018 so looks like I’ll be waiting a very long time…

Disclaimer: this book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Paperback is released 13th July