Review: Mila 2.0 (Mila 2.0, #1)

Author: Debra Driza
Series: Mila 2.0, #1
Published: March 12th 2013
Publisher: Katherine Tegan Books
Hardcover, 480 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: The Book Depository

I've spent a long time trying to come up with the best/gentlest way to put this, but in the end, I feel that a direct approach might be best. So here it is: despite a fabulous premise, numerous action scenes and androids (androids, for heaven’s sake!), Mila 2.0 is unfortunately quite boring. After seeing the cover and reading the synopsis, I truly expected to read it in one sitting, but alas, I had to bribe myself to even finish it.

”Right. I’m the computer.” Not only that, but somewhere on–no, in. In!–my body, I had a slot for that card. An electrical portal.How was that even possible? How could you have a part for a memory card in your body and not know about it?

After a fire that killed her beloved father, Mila moved to a new town with her mother. She’s struggling with her memory loss, the grief over losing her dad and her desire to make new friends in school. Then, while fighting with her new best friend over a boy (!), Mila gets injured, but her injury doesn’t bleed. Instead, her arm is full of wires and having it open doesn’t hurt in the least.
Her mother is not surprised by this, only worried that someone else might have seen it. Attracting unwanted attention is the last thing they need while running from the government, Mila’s creators. But even though Mila, once activated, turns into a killing machine, not even that is enough to help her escape from the people chasing her.

Humanlike in some spots, but with parts that no human possessed. Parts layered underneath the surface that spoke of things that weren’t alive; my ugliness, all spelled out and irrefutable.

I understand that this is a series and that there must be some loose ends, but far too many things were left unsaid. Mila 2.0 just ended at a pretty random place (this seems to be a new trend) and none of the characters or their motivations were any clearer than at the beginning. For example, an MIT student was assigned to perform tests on Mila in the compound and it was hinted that he wasn’t there of his own free will – the commander had something on his brother and was using that to blackmail Lucas into working with him. But nothing about that situation made sense to me. First and foremost, I don’t even know what the situation was exactly – it was never properly explained. Second, why would the leader of a secret government facility with endless resources at his disposal even need a teenage boy to work for him? And third, if he had something that big on Lucas, why would Lucas risk everything to help Mila, an android he barely even knew? And then there was the small matter of Mila’s “mother” – she was the key character in this story and yet I still don’t know a single thing about her.

Romance was mostly absent from the book, which I appreciated, but there WAS a romantic interest present at the beginning and the very end. Mila met Hunter before she learned her true nature and left him behind when she was forced to run from her enemies. The instalove that happened between them was tragically unfounded and unconvincing. I honestly don’t see why Hunter needed to be present in this book at all and the romance was a serious detriment to my enjoyment of the story. Not that there was much enjoyment to begin with.

Nevertheless, I’ve read some pretty horrible books lately, and Mila 2.0 wasn’t quite so bad. I see some potential in this series and I’m willing to give it another chance, which means that the second book will either make it or break it for me. I will wait to give my final verdict.