REVIEW #94: MILA 2.0 (MILA 2.0 #1) by Debra Driza

Title: MILA 2.0

Series: MILA 2.0 #1
Author: Debra Driza

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Release Date: March 12, 2013

Pages: 480, Hardcover
Source: ARC

Summary from Goodreads:

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.

Mila 2.0 is Debra Driza’s bold debut and the first book in a Bourne Identity-style trilogy that combines heart-pounding action with a riveting exploration of what it really means to be human. Fans of I Am Number Four will love Mila for who she is and what she longs to be—and a cliffhanger ending will leave them breathlessly awaiting the sequel.

 

“A false past, a false Mom and Dad. Everything about me false, false, false. 

It was like being buried alive in a landslide of hopelessness and despair. Except I wasn’t alive. That was the problem.”

Mila thinks she's a normal teenage girl, until she learns the truth. She is anything but.

“’Although the MILA 2.0-‘ The! THE! Like I was an object a thing! And 2.0? What did that even mean? ‘-is physically indistinguishable from an ordinary sixteen-year-old girl, its brain is actually a reverse-engineered nanocomputer, a complex mix of transistors and live cell technology that gives it unique capatilites. These include exceptional reflexes and strength, superhuman multitasking and memory skills, and the ability to hack computer systems, among many others. It can also evoke appropriate emotions, based on environmental and physical stimuli.’

I . . . what was this? A nanocomputer? Evoke appropriate emotions? Evoke? This person couldn’t possible be trying to tell me . . he couldn’t be saying . . . there was just no way. Of course my emotions were real. I felt things all the time.”

Even without all the action in this book, I still would have enjoyed it. I got totally sucked into the Mila's struggle to accept who, or rather what, she is. I can't imagine someone telling me I wasn't real and then seeing the proof with my own eyes, destroying any hope of it being untrue. (After she learns the truth, her "Mom" activates her android abilities). She looks and feels like a teenage girl. She has memories of growing up. She even cares about a boy. The truth threatens to take that all away.

“When he traced the scratch with his other hand, I swear something inside me flipped over completely. Somersaulted. Performed an entire circus act in less than five seconds. No way could a covert nanocomputer android spy feel like that.”

As if learning you are an android isn't bad enough, everyone wants a piece of her - the government, the Vita Obscura - to use her for what she is and what she can do.  But she doesn't want to be the monster they created her to be. While trying to avoid capture, she must learn to use her android  abilities - some which come as second-nature, others which take some adjusting to.

“I stared at the slot, my wrist, my entire arm, like they belonged to someone else. Like they were completely different alien entities.”

But her "father" finds her and he is ready to terminate her. He's convinced her emotions make her weak and unruly and he's already moved on to creating another Mila. Mila 3.0, better known as "Three". But he gives Mila one more opportunity to prove her worth. She is pitted against Three in a series of tests and if she can win she can stay alive.  He made sure to have leverage to make her play by the rules.

“Another MILA. Another girl formed using the exact same research that had created me. Well, not exactly the same. This MILA wouldn’t have my overreactive ‘emotional garbage.’ As Holland had so tactfully put it.”

I just found this entire book to be both thoughtful and thrilling. It was a unique twist on your typical Sci Fi action adventure. If I wasn't absorbed in her struggle for her humanity I was anxious for her to escape her father and excited for her kick some ass. Even though this is a big book I never once felt bored. It is full of emotion and adventure and discovery. I  I was invested from the first page to the very last word.

“Because despite the undeniable knowledge that I wasn’t human- or mostly human, anyway - despite the proof the computer screen had shown in the repair room, I still pictured my interior just the same as any other sixteen-year-old girl’s. Blood and guts and bones. A brain, and a functioning heart. Hopes and dreams, fears and sorrow. They could tell me the truth, but they couldn’t force me to accept it.”

 

This ARC was provided as part of the Debut Author Challenge ARC Tours