This book was delightfully cute! This YA space “thriller” reads almost like a sitcom, where the aliens look like the Pac-Man ghosts, the jocks are overly brawny, the nerds overly brainy, and the key to saving the galaxy as we know it is the love and innocence of an eight-year-old girl. Which can, at times, put this book on the younger side of the YA side of things, but more on that in a bit. We are told the story of young Max, his two friends, and little sister being abducted in a humorous 1st person POV after the fact. As in, the book starts at an inciting incident, Max says, “ok, but let’s back up and see how we got here”, and hijinks ensue. It all starts following a trip to Muir National Forest gone very wrong—including a pair of the most over the top “Granola Twins” in existence. The book is charming in it’s silly, over the top humor and scenarios—including many a bathroom joke. Although, I will say that having read all the books and seen the media this book claims as comps, it’s not a very accurate picture.

I am very late to the party on this series, I have accepted I will be late to most of these kinds of series. In my defense, post-apocalyptic and dystopian YA novels aren’t my go-to genre much anymore. But I have friends who love these books, and, well, it was time. Plus, Mafi is such a beautiful writer, her stories so full of delicious prose, and “Shatter Me” was no exception. Though this first book felt very much like a “series” book with very little getting resolved come the end.

“System Collapse” probably would have been better if it was part of the novel “Network Effect”. There, I said it. The two stories are only vaguely separate, and the thing that Murderbot says it’ll do come the end of “Network Effect” doesn’t actually happen until the end of “System Collapse”. Which is kind of confusing I know, imagine how I felt reading this. The events of the latest novella follow right after the full-length book, like immediately after, which is why I am glad I re-read the novel before starting this latest novella because, otherwise, I’d have been lost throughout.

If you’re looking for a futuristic semi-dystopian where country disputes are settled through Olympic-style virtual sporting events played to the death (kind of like the Hunger Games), but with a distinctly “Matrix” vibe to it, well, that’s “MegaDeath” in a nutshell. In this futuristic version of the world, the global pecking order is decided every 4 years through a series of virtual simulator competitions which have replaced all wars. Sounds kind of nice, except the losing team dies and there’s something very fishy going on with the bets people make around these top athletes, and the Control system that puts on these virtual games. That’s where our main character, Megan, comes in. She is the elite of the elite when it comes to dominating in these games, but she doesn’t play for glory. She plays because she is in such intense anger and grief that she wants these games to punish her. That’s really compelling, but, unfortunately, Megan spent too long being an unlikable character to really get me invested in her, or the conflict.

This is pretty much "Saga" meets DnD with some super sassy, modern babes leading the charge. This whole bindup was just feral FUN honestly. I love me some unapologetically badass babes with strong friendships and swords. My only issue was that, at times, the story could be a bit disorienting with what was happening, the story arcs could have been tied together a bit better to where the story flowed. As it was, there were times where I thought I was missing a volume or something, which is impossible given the bindup.