So, I joined Netgalley a few years ago, and did as anyone would: requested a ton of books every few months (for the first few years) because it was exciting to be able to do that, and I didn't always pay attention to what was a sequel and what was not. And apparently this one is a part of a series?

Either way, while Genesis has an intriguing concept and I am definitely intrigued about it - after 5 (omg) years I'm going to close this on Netgalley. If I come back round to it in the future, I will be sure to amend this review.

Thank you to the publisher for giving me this arc to read, and I extend my apologies that I did not. I will leave a high rating on this to not negatively impact the overall rating.

Excellent follow up to Nemesis. This one has just as many twists and turns, with moments of excitement and sadness. It's left me wanting more so I'll be looking for the next one.

Firstly i’d like to thank NetGalley for providing me with an eARC copy of this book, all views and opinions discussed are my own.

I have a confession, and it is that I am an idiot. I didn’t realise until mid-way through that this book was actually part of a series, I was under the impression this was a stand-alone so I had to redo my thinking whilst reading this book. I thought it was all going to be concluded in the book, but with it being part of a series it obviously wasn’t going to be. I have also, only just realised, that this was the second book of the series🤦🤦🤦 I’ve just looked on goodreads and realised that I thought I was reading Nemesis… but I actually read Genesis… this makes me understand why the synopsis was confusing the hell out of me because I was reading the synopsis for Nemesis. I honestly don’t think that this really impacted my reading of Genesis but who knows.

It does explain why there’s not a lot of world building in this book and why we start part way through – this was gonna be one of my complaints of this book, but considering it was my mess up it’s not a complaint of the book as it’s clearly all explained in the first book…

This book was an interesting book, and I did enjoy the concept, but I didn’t necessarily feel any tension with the characters. I’m not sure if this is because I haven’t read the first book to connect with these characters, but I just never got overly invested in any of the characters. I think this may be partly due to the fact that Reichs seems to forget some of his character arcs during the plot, and they just suddenly change their actions with no real explanation or consequence. It gives you whiplash a bit trying to keep up with why people are suddenly changing their view points with no real trigger. I was also really annoyed at Min during this book with how she felt about Noah; she refers over and over and over to the fact that he shot her in the back, but once she looks at him it’s like that goes all out the window and she’s ready to forgive and forget. It just seemed a bit laughable to me.

I do feel this book was quite slow in places, and I was skipping through sections were nothing really happened. I am also really really disappointed in the ending of this book and I honestly feel it was a bit of a cop out. The whole book is based upon the fact that not all of these children can survive this phase of the game, and that only a small number of them will make it on, so for the ending to then suddenly throw all of that to the side I was so disappointed. I think what this book did well was to show how normal people can completely throw aside all their humanity and fledge an all out war on people they might have once cared about. So to suddenly have the last chapter when the game completely changes and suddenly everyone gets to survive just really ruined everything that had already happened because it all just became pointless. I do think that it will be interesting to see how they deal with what happened to all these kids in the next book; all of these kids have to have some level of PTSD and I really hope the book actually address this, and the fact that these kids have brutally murdered one another.

This wasn’t a terrible book, but it wasn’t an overly amazing one. I think what ruined it for me is that the fact that everyone suddenly survives and comes back at the end of the book, makes the whole of this book irrelevant. I’d be intrigued to read the whole series but I wouldn’t necessarily buy it myself.

An action fueled sequel that is just as good as the first. It's well written with a focus on the details that gives it that movie quality.

Yet another instance of Netgalley not displaying that a book is a sequel. I'm going to have to be a lot more careful in choosing my reads on here to avoid this happening so much.

I really enjoyed the first half of this story, exploring the characters even though the premise sounded a little bit to out there for me, but hey, it could happen! However, as the story progressed and didn't seem to advance too much plotwise, I started to lose interest. Kid killing each other in the name of survival gets very boring very fast if there isn't anything else going on. Unfortunately, it didn't hit the spot for me, so I skipped towards the end and it happened what I had predicted so didn't lose much on that one because it still made sense to me, so I'm glad I skipped that. 2 stars

This second part of the story of the young people of Fire Lake is as compelling as the first (Nemesis). I really enjoyed becoming reacquainted with the characters and seeing their evolution. This dystopian saga is a great new twist on 'Lord of the Flies' for 21st century readers. Looking forward to finding out what happens next.

Genesis in my opinion was the perfect sequel to Nemesis, hands down. This is a seriously action packed and fast paced story that I couldn’t put it down. It might not be perfect but regardless if you are a huge fan of science fiction and thrillers, I think this is one that could change your mind as it’s a series I’d recommend. The writing is great, the story is amazing and detailed and so much fun, and the characters are well written and fleshed out in such a great way. I’m hoping that there’s a book 3 as I want to know what happens next.

Sometimes I find when reading a sequel, it can be difficult to get back into the world and story this isn’t an issue with this book. I think the only really issues were from me not remembering details but that’s reader error not author. Brendan Reichs did a phenomenal job giving little hints to what happened in the last book, without it feeling at all like an information dump.

The plot does however raise a lot of important issues and makes you questions yourself over how far you would go to survive or gain power, but also what you’d be willing to sacrifice for your beliefs and those you care about. The characters make such big and difficult decisions about who to trust and what to believe. It was both interesting and thought provoking to see how different people handle difficult, sometimes life-threatening situations. I thought the way the author used a diverse mix of characters to demonstrate this was very well done.

I really enjoyed this second instalment. The survivors are having to prove their worth in an increasingly violent world where your humanness stands against you. You have to kill to survive. If this is against all your instincts as it is for Min your choices become increasingly stark. True strength of character is hard to maintain in this world - it is easy to be sucked in and manipulated. When Sarah - one of the betas - tries to mix it up by adding freak weather events and wild animals it all becomes crazy.

A good read all the way through with an ending I was not expecting.

Really enjoyable.

We’re back with Min Wilder, her bff Tack, the boy who shot her Noah, then the power team Ethan and Sarah, among others who are stuck in a virtual reality version of their town. They are just lines of data, in phase two of the project. Every time they die they regenerate randomly at a new location. The big questions are how do they get to stage three, how many times can you regenerate, and what impact does shooting other people have on you.

I found myself thankful that they had to keep reminding themselves that they were only lines of code, because I kept forgetting, the simulated town is so real to them it makes it real to the reader, making you forget that what they feel is real to them but not really real, not outside the programme.

When I stepped away from the book, out of the digital world created for Min and her friends I realised something. This book is really topical. Not just because we are destroying the planet, and it’s the only one we have, or not because Artificial intelligence really amazing, and revolutionary, but because the story focusses on a group of high school kids, many of whom are who are running around their simulated world shooting each other, without a care or thought for what they are doing. Even when they realise you might not have unlimited lives, it doesn’t stop. This is really the part of the story that’s almost secondary although it’s the main course of action. Teenagers with guns are committing murder, suicide and occasionally voluntary murder. Yes they’re not ‘real’ they exist only in the computer programme, making it feel less real, less of an issue; but its there. I really like the book, and I would recommend it to anyone who asked ( or didn’t) but I think it’ll be interesting to see how its received by the wider audience, or if it received the option to be made into a tv show. Im all for that by the way! With the current media focus on 13 reasons why it makes me think, are we moving (backwards?) into an era where stories like this will be championed for being different, daring and brilliant, or will they be relegated to the banned books pile?

Short version of the review. I loved it!

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

Genesis dives straight back in where Nemesis left off. Nemesis was one of my favourite reads last year, so I have been eagerly anticipating this sequel for some time. If you haven’t read Nemesis yet, then check out my review and consider reading that before you read this review.

In this sequel Min is more carefully considering the implications of the ending to Nemesis, where she discovered the reason for her being murdered every other birthday and that she, and those who survived with her, were nothing more than computer codes in a programme designed to save humanity.

“Did time mean anything now? Did it exist in the program?”

Noah is taking a different approach: he is determined to win at all costs, even if he’s not completely sure what game he’s playing. It seems any budding romance they had in Nemesis is well and truly behind them. Noah is prepared to shoot Min, to kill her, if that’s what it takes to make the Program proud. This second book sees Noah and Min take opposite sides. Min tries to remain loyal and true to herself, whilst Noah is prepared to sacrifice anything that will help him win. The two give us an indication of the polarised sides that could be taken in this situation and an opportunity to examine the merits of each approach.

Min feels that they are starting to lose parts of their selves:

“the fact that death was no longer frightening made me unaccountably sad. It felt alien. Like a vital part of my humanity had been stripped away.”

The book is, in part at least, an examination of what it is that makes us human. Every time they are “reset” a little more of what makes them is eroded. We soon learn that the resets are not endless though. At some point, all those involved can and will die. As the participants start to realise this, and work out how and why this is happening, more of Project Nemesis’s intentions and experiments are revealed and Min might finally find out what the point of all this is.

Sarah becomes a really interesting character in this story. I found her more intriguing than Min at times. She is clever, deliciously vicious and she works out quickly what is going on, but she has a strong sense of self-preservation and isn’t going to sacrifice herself to help anyone else. The methods she resorts to are extremely clever and well-thought through.

I found this sequel quite slow going and lacking in some of the tension and excitement that I so loved in Nemesis. Overall, it was a good conclusion to the Project Nemesis story and did give the reader a lot to think about.

Packed full of action from the very first page to the very last and with more than a few twists this is seriously addictive reading.

When I finished the first book in this series I have to admit I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue. I loved the premise but didn’t connect to any of the characters and felt there was maybe too much going on. I couldn’t however resist Genesis when it popped up on NetGalley as I was just too curious about where the story would go.

It turned out this was a great decision as this is a very enjoyable read. It picks up not long after the dramatic conclusion of the first book with a bang (literally) and the pace never lets up. I will admit that I’d forgotten some of what happened (and what was revealed) in Nemesis so was a little confused in the beginning but it didn’t take long for me to get back up to speed.

I’m not going to say much about the plot but there are elements of Lord of the Flies, the Hunger Games & Battle Royale all mashed up with something quite unique and different. There are more than a few twists and turns and I loved how the dynamics of the various groups of characters changed and developed with each new reveal. I will admit I’m not wholly convinced by some of the science behind it but I was willing to go with it and it did answer a lot of the questions that I had from the first book.

There is a lot more action in this book and, I should warn, a lot more violence and death, some even I found shocking. It does however raise a lot of issues over how far you would go to survive or to gain power but also what you’d be willing to sacrifice for your beliefs and those you care about. I thought the way the author used a diverse mix of characters to demonstrate this was very well done.

Unfortunately though the number of characters in this book was also something I struggled with. There are various different groups and a lot of different names and changing allegiances to keep track of. I don’t have the best memory for names I’m afraid so I did get muddled on who was who from time to time before deciding it didn’t really matter and focusing on the main ones.

Like Nemesis, this book is told in alternating chapters from the povs of Min and Noah and they really are intriguing characters. Both have had similar experiences but react in different ways. Min is the steadier and more stable of the two and I loved how she held onto her morals and beliefs. Noah was however much more erratic and therefore interesting. It is so good to see a male lead who is so uncertain and anxious. He makes mistakes and deals with things badly but I still found myself rooting for him and hoping he’d come good.

I did feel some of the other characters were a little stereotyped and I would have loved to get to know them better but with so many characters and so much going on there just wasn’t time.

This is a seriously action packed and fast paced story and I pretty much read the whole thing in a day, I couldn’t put it down. It’s not perfect but it is a series I’d recommend. I’m hoping that there’s a book 3 as I want to know what happens next.

Holy. Moly. Did I just read that? What a thrill ride if a book. And a blood bath! I am not even slightly joking on that one, my gosh, it’s vicious. I am sat here a little bereft it’s over and slightly shocked by it all. Also before you read on there are mild spoilers for the first book included, so beware!

Anyway, onto the main review! As you may remember I loved the first instalment of this series, and I was annoyed I hadn’t guessed a bit more of what was going on. Well that’s because of the whole Nemesis thing, I’ve come across that before and I am still annoyed I didn’t put it together! I guessed about the computer program to a degree, though not completely how it played out, but not Nemesis. Haha. So the sequel is a tiny bit more predictable I guess, but only because the set up is already done. I definitely didn’t foresee the level of blood bath it would become! And Tack and Noah are still a little problematic. More Noah this time for me, he was all over the shop. But it was less frustrating than in the first book - possibly because they both spend less time with Min, and possibly because there’s just so much else going on to concentrate on.

But I loved Min. And Sarah, to a degree! Possibly evil, but focussed and driven, which I respect in this context. Wouldn’t want to know her though 😉. And Ethan and friends are proper psychos but in way that really works for the story. I also really like the way the groups are put together and change through time, the dynamics of their crazy little society.

I do want more at the end - with everything they go through there would be serious consequences in the future, as well as there being a real implication of what happens next in their world. I get why we don’t have that, but I could happily read a short story about the fallout and the events of the next 10-20 years! 😂

Overall I think the absolute edge-of-your-seat style writing is just something that really works for me and that’s why I love this so much. It’s hi-octane and slightly crazy, and a thoroughly enjoyable read. A great finale to the duology.

One of my favourite aspects was the pace, this books has over 500 pages it never felt long and I never found myself uninterested in what was going on. The characters as usual were very good and now I'm definitely going to read more of this authors books. An amazing sequel!