I have been waiting for this book for such a long time. I read the first book – Nemesis – about a year and a half ago, thinking that it was quite an old book and that it had been out for a long time. BUT NO! When I realised that it was a new release and that I had to wait over a year for the second book, I was so sad! But now, Genesis is here and boy, am I excited to share my thoughts with you.

Noah Livingston knows he is destined to survive.

The 64 members of Fire Lake’s sophomore class are trapped in a place where morals have no meaning, and zero rules apply. But Noah’s deaths have trained him–hardened him–to lead the strongest into the future . . . whatever that may be. And at any cost.

Min Wilder knows that survival alone isn’t enough.

Trapped in a violent world where brute force passes for leadership, it’s tempting to lay back and let everyone else fight it out. But Min’s instincts rebel against allowing others to decide who lives and who dies. She’s ready to fight for what she believes in. And against whomever might stand in her way.

So the story continues from where Nemesis ended: Min, Noah, Tack, and the other 61 members of the sophomore class have made it into phase 2 and the Guardian has told them that they’re actually dead and all of humanity on Earth is extinct. To pass phase 2, the students have to survive, which basically means everyone killing each other. My brain and my heart were bent and crushed during the book… I just love the theme of this series: Earth devastation and a corrupt government. It’s like The Hunger Games mixed with a bit of The 100.

Throughout the whole novel, my brain was thinking ‘what the actual f***’ because there were just so many twists and turns where secrets were revealed, characters underwent MASSIVE development, and there was so much tension that I didn’t think my heart could take it. Now… This is a 500 page book, so I was very apprehensive of the size and I was hoping that Brendan Reichs wouldn’t be waffling, but Reichs had grasped my attention at every corner, on every sentence, on every word. I felt myself falling in love with the world and characters even more than I had in the first book. And yes, I found it very strange that I loved all of the characters, because some of them are just plain evil. But evil characters such as Ethan, Toby, and Sarah made brilliant antagonists and it was great to see what they would get up to, especially Sarah. She just turns into a complete psychopath. I think that Sarah may actually be one of my favourite characters. She’s this popular girl who is SO SMART and figures out everything to do with Project Nemesis and then adapts it so it can work around her. She’s a genius.

“Phase Two has begun.
Uploaded sequences must be sorted.
You must find your place within the system.”

– Brendan Reichs, Genesis

AND NOAH! God, I genuinely thought that I hated him. I just felt like I didn’t recognise him any more. He became this person that didn’t think about humanity, feelings, love… anything. He sort of became this robot that only cared about killing people and how many he COULD kill. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we had Min, who didn’t want to hurt ANYONE and grew so much weaker because of it. I did tend to get really angry at Min for not adapting to phase 2, but in the end, I am really glad that she stuck to her guns because she definitely prevailed in the end and showed everyone that keeping their humanity was the best thing to do.

Was this better than the first book? I have no idea. I don’t think it’s fair to judge them as the same thing. They are two completely different books that deal with different themes, and the second one is so much more violent. Genesis is a brutally intense thrill ride from the first sentence to the last and there had better be a third book because I really need to see what happens next with these characters and how they work together in the next stage of Project Nemesis.

THIS IS HOW SEQUELS ARE DONE.

Disclaimer: this book was sent to me unsolicited from Pan Macmillan. So thank you to them for sending me a copy to review