To be honest, it was more like 4.5, which I'll elaborate on in a bit.

Disclaimers: I was given a free ARC of Failsafe through Netgalley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. Spoilers ahead!

Okay. How do I properly express my love for Failsafe without becoming a gushy mess? I don't think it's possible. First of all, the character development...

I started out not loving the main character, Sol, because she, like many other disabled characters in books I've read, thought she was less of a person due to her illness. However, as the story progressed and Sol found herself away from the ableist environment she grew up in, she finally came to the realization that she has not gotten so far in spite of her illness. Epilepsy is simply a part of her and yes, she had to make some adjustments in her life to accommodate it, but she is still worthy and entitled to everything an abled person is.

The character development displayed here is so incredibly important to me as a disabled, chronically ill person. When I was her age, I thought similar things about myself. I thought I was less of a person due to the ableist society we live in. It was depressing and discouraging and I really felt for Sol in those scenes. When she finally learned that the opposite was true, I cried, I was so happy for her!

Sol wasn't the only one who grew as a character. Echo grew to become one of my favourite fictional characters of all time. I won't spoil it for you, as it's too cute not to experience yourself.

Second of all, Sol and Echo. Sol! And! Echo! Their chemistry was intoxicating. My cheeks hurt from smiling so much. Sometimes I scan paragraphs in books like this where there's a long adventure to get to their end goal, but I didn't have to do that at all in Failsafe. Every scene was written in such a way that I was hanging on every word, empowered by every sarcastic retort. I stayed up all night reading just so I wouldn't have to leave Sol's and Echo's world.

Of course, the book wasn't perfect. I have yet to find one that is. I would've liked to see how everything turned out: the settlements' reactions, Sol reuniting with her parents and Leithan, that sort of thing. On that subject, I really felt like her settlement was going to play a bigger role in the story than it did. Sure, they were her motivation, her reminder of why she's risking her life for Echo's mission, but after she leaves the settlement they never show up again. Sol did check in with them over radio once or twice, though we were told so in afterthoughts, not firsthand. This doesn't bother me enough to knock my rating down a full star, though, because the story as a whole was detailed and well developed.

Do I recommend this book? Yes! Go pre-order it right now!

I enjoyed the storytelling pace and the characters. The explanation of the dystopian elements at the end was nicely done as well.

After finishing this book, all I can say is: I WANT MORE! Failsafe was different compared to other sci-fi novels I have read. The idea is so unique and different. I have a crazy fascination with A.I. and what would happen if it rebelled and became smarter then its human counter parts. Anela explored this in her novel as well as the message that love has no bounds.


After learning she has epilepsy everything that Sol had hoped for her future is slowly collapsing. Where she was suppose to follow in her father's footsteps, the position is suddenly passed on to Mykel, the boy she been genetically matched with to produce healthy children to keep the human race going. Sol does what she can for her home colony though. She goes out of the compound and scavenges for supplies that the A.I. they live within no longer provides for them. On one of these runs Sol meets Echo, a boy who looks like no one she has ever seen before. There is one thing about this strange boy though: He isn't entirely human. Echo's primary objective is to destroy the Interspace and with the help of Sol, he might just succeed.

There are so many laugh out loud moments in Failsafe. Yes, Echo is human but he has no social skills. He has spent years in silence searching for a way to destroy the Interspace. He never had a moment of human interaction until the moment he meets Sol. Echo learning humanity and what certain things are, the way humans react to certain things is funny. I think the best aspect of Sol teaching Echo about human behavior is her body language as she begins to develop feelings for the mysterious boy. Echo is notices the slightest changes in things, such as: Sol's accelerated heart rate when she is around him. He also doesn't understand all the new feelings he is beginning to experience. It was fun to see a human/robot develop such feelings for Sol and a better understanding for humanity.

Typically, I am one for a slow burn romance where I am basically screaming for the two characters to kiss. This book takes place over a couple of week time span, so though it may seem that Sol's feelings for Echo or abrupt and happen pretty quick, they actually aren't. I enjoyed the moment that Sol acknowledges the fact she has a crush on Echo, and she does that typical girl things where she doesn't want to have feelings but she does and now she is confused. Sol was such an easily relatable character in this book.

The only thing I wasn't sure about is that I am not sure if this book is a stand alone or not. I think there were a lot of things that could have been clarified more or and expanded upon, especially if this is a stand alone. I enjoyed Failsafe and would love to see more of Sol and Echo's journey in the new obstacles they are going to faced based on how the novel ended.

This was fun! A fast paced YA story with an interesting MC and a suitably brooding yet emotionally childlike love interest. It’s basically a mash up of The Matrix and Maze Runner but that’s not a criticism. I enjoyed it loads.

Even the best of prisons was still a prison

* * * 
3 / 5

Try to picture this: humanity, inside a massive living computer on the surface of the Earth. I don't know about you, but I couldn't really imagine it, so my mental picture whilst reading Failsafe was mostly blank. But other than that I thought it was super cool and engaging and I even liked the romance!

"You keep thinking if I sit still it'll make the seizures go away for good. That's not how it is, and I refuse to be useless because you feel better when I do nothing"

Sol lives in one of the last refuges of humanity inside the massive physical network system known as the Interspace. The Interspace is also sentient and overthrew the government many years ago. It was very confusing. Drones, minions of the Interspace, used to deliver food to each of the small dozen settlements but they have now stopped and Sol is the only one who dares venture out to get food. It's out there in the grid that she meets Echo, a weirdly cold man who is trying to reach the central grid to shut down the Interspace.

I really liked Sol. She's a brave spunky girl who is also epileptic. Her life is a fight between her parents whose fear is trying to overrule her life and the violent and possessive man she is promised to once she turns eighteen. Sol sees Echo and his mission as a way to escape her restrictive life and to help the future of humanity; with the blessing of her settlement mayor, Sol guides Echo with the help of her strange dreams that help her to see the inner workings of the Interspace.

"We yearned, but we didn't know for what"

Echo is also great. His origins are a mystery and he and Sol have such opposite personalities and their interactions are sometimes sweet and sometimes hilarious. The characters are such a focal point of Failsafe.  They are up against the Interspace itself and her main minion: a dark and seriously creepy robot called the Override.

On the downside, there's the confusing setting that I have already touched on. Failsafe has a bunch of futuristic elements thrown in that don't really make all that much sense: a cyber setting, cloning, dystopian humanity. Some of the writing was also a little choppy.

In conclusion: Failsafe had me totally torn.

My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of Failsafe.

I have been blessed! Recently I've been lucky enough to read some pretty incredible books and I'm so happy to say that Failsafe by Anela Dean was another one of those books!

Firstly I loved the plot of this book. It follows our main character Soleil who's struggling to find her place in the world while simultaneously trying to adapt to having Epilepsy. Which would be a lot easier if she didn't live in a world completely controlled by computers following the attempted extinction of the entire human race. You can see why I was intrigued.

I have to say that the plot is what really kept me going in this book, although nothing about this book let me down. Firstly Anela's writing style is easy to read and enjoyable. It keeps you interested without being an info-dump. I loved how she wrote the dynamic between Echo and Soleil. They're very different characters and both were written in such an interesting way.

I will say that another one of my most favorite parts of this book was the villain- a super computer created to make sure that Echo never successfully completes his mission. It blended both human and computer characteristics in such a terrifying way. It's been a long way since I've been seriously impressed by the villain in a story.

Overall I gave Failsafe a 5/5 star rating because it was enjoyable to read, flowed very well, Anela's writing style was simple but eloquent, and I adored both of the main characters. If you like post apocalyptic, future, and sci-fi I think you'll enjoy this book. Bonus points if you like a cute love story!

Thank you to Netgalley for sending me a copy of this book in return for my honest review. I am excited to see what else we get from Dean and if you'd like to pre-order the book the kindle version is currently on pre-sale for .99 cents! You can find it on Amazon!

This is more of a 3.5 stars.

I loved the post-apocalyptic setting and the sentient machines taking over and controlling the humans; the MC having epilepsy is treated with care and attention, the writing high-lights how the treatment from her parents and her community is stifling and controlling, without the author sounding preachy.
The overall idea is great and very well done, I would have preferred it to be more fleshed out and developed, giving more background info on how much time they have passed in this environment, how they are organized, etc. I loved the details that everyone has dark hair and eyes, pointing to a multiracial community.
I would love to read more about this author!

I'd forgotten how much I love a good adventure novel until I started reading Failsafe. The book follows a 17-year-old epileptic girl living in a dystopian future, Soleil, on her journey to save the world. Or at least try. She has some help in the form of a boy/robot named Echo. They set off on a journey to take down the big bad, an AI who goes by "The Interface."

Just based on the premise I'm sure you can help how much fun this book was to read. I'm a sucker for dystopian YA with a little bit of romance thrown in, so this was basically my kryptonite. There were a few bumps in the story along the way, but for the most part, I'm happy with how everything played out. Some of the world building was a bit vague/confusing in the beginning to middle of the book, but I'm going to go ahead and say that was deliberate. For a long while, I had no idea what was going on and who exactly the enemy was. They kept talking about "The Interface" but literally not until the end of the book did I figure out what that was referring to. I'm not sure whether it was not explicitly explained or if I just wasn't paying close enough attention.

I think my favorite part was probably the dialogue. I think? I just loved how formal Sol and Echo spoke to each other. Sol because she's playing along and slightly making fun of him. And Echo because he doesn't know anything different. Sometimes, the writing ended up sound slightly convoluted, but rather than being annoyed I found it kind of charming. (But maybe that's just me?) His character development in this book was not something I anticipated to be so believable, but somehow I ended up falling for it. The story didn't draw me into the characters enough to fully immerse myself in their situation, but it was close.

Overall, this book was a fun read. Not perfect, but definitely not the worst dystopian I've read. By far. If you're into futuristic books with AI overlords, give this one a look.

Page turner! I spent all afternoon reading to get to the end, which I loved.
Echo and Soleil meet while Sol is out scavenging supplies for her settlement. They embark on a quest to shutdown the Interspace, a sentient computer that has taken over the planet. Echo, a Failsafe, is being pursued by The Override, a hateful robot cylon-like being. Soleil has visions of the drone schedules and Interspace schematics while she is sleeping, so she helps guide Echo safely through the giant mega computer.
This was so much fun, and the action never lagged. Echo and Soleil have sizzling chemistry throughout the entire book. The romance between them is sweet, and the last pages had me in tears.
Highly recommend this exciting sci-fi romance.

GOD this is probably the most torn i’ve ever been about a book EVER.

Failsafe: A Novel follows our main character Soleil, Sol for short, who is a young epileptic girl living in a futuristic dystopian society where an AI called the ‘Interspace’ has taken over the government and basically the entire world. a lot of people have died for it (like, billions of people), so the world has been divided in small settlements where the few survivors left can live in a relative sort of ‘peace’. Sol stumbles upon Echo, a cyborg/android of sorts whose primary directive is to kill the Interspace.

the plot, in theory, sounds awesome!! but the book itself left me feeling a little irresolute.

on the one hand there are some parts of Failsafe: A Novel that i absolutely loved: everybody in this book is laugh-out-loud hilarious and relatable. Echo and Sol, as far as their characterization goes, are opposites to the very marrow of their bones, but the interactions between them are delivered in such a natural way that the dialogue becomes instantly relatable and in-synch with the feel of the novel. Echo in particular was a FANTASTIC character who made me wish the book was longer, just so we could get to see more of him. and like? not gonna lie, i also thoroughly enjoyed myself while reading this.

HOWEVER, there were some aspects of Failsafe: A Novel that i couldn’t ignore, no matter how hard i tried.
- first and foremost, world building: we go into Failsafe: A Novel knowing only one thing: that some sort of AI has taken over the world, and that a vast majority of the planet’s population has perished because of it. that’s about all the world building we get, and that’s already going into the book. it doesn’t get any less ambiguous. we’re clueless as to why the world ended up the way it did, how the Interspace became as powerful as it did, whoinvented the Interspace, why Echo and Sol mean to destroy it, considering the fact that most of the world (or however little of it is left) lives in considerably comfortable peace as long as they don’t leave their settlements. Echo and Sol also do a lot of traveling on foot, which begs the question, how are they doing all of this?? Echo is fine, but Sol doesn’t really have superhuman strength and prowess like he does. the settlements are also??? suspiciously close to one another for no reason other than to make Sol’s travels faster. and Sol knows the leaders of said settlements??? even though they’re not allowed to leave their own settlement???? anyway, lots of questions. don’t even want to get into the Interspace itself because we actually know literally NOTHING about it.

- some of the writing: although Anela Deen is a clear master of dialogue, the actual writing part of Failsafe: A Novel was truthfully a little bit wonky. some scenes skipped out of nowhere and cut to a completely different setting, which destroyed the aesthetic of the book somewhat, because you can’t really tell where Echo and Sol are or what they’re doing or how they got there. this is more towards the publisher, and it’s safe to say that i received an uncorrected proof of the book, but the grammar was a little inconsistent at times. i found MANY typos, some even in characters’ names.

- lack of plot development: listen, i really did enjoy this book. Echo and Sol are amazing and i’d give anything for a second book about just the two of them. that’s a problem, though. i didn’t really care about the plot, because there was no plot. things just…… happened without much of an explanation or consequence. nothing really deterred these characters from reaching their goal, at all. considering the fact that an all-seeing, sentient being is watching over the world and controlling every little aspect of it, Echo and Sol had a surprisingly easy time. in my opinion, the plot was more of an excuse to write a romance between Echo and Sol than it was anything else. (doesn’t mean i didn’t enjoy the romance between Echo and Sol lmao)

i mean, this book could absolutely be lovable to somebody who wants to turn a blind eye to some of this stuff, but i just couldn’t. it bothered me too much despite how genuinely i was enjoying my reading experience. doesn’t take away from the fact that i loved it, but…… yeah. torn, torn, torn!!

First off, Sol and Echo are my goals. Seriously. Second, this book was OUTSTANDING. It had everything that I enjoy in a book. Good plot, excellent writing, good characters, a fantasy/sci-fi theme (in this case sci-fi), and relatable. I absolutely loved Sol. She was strong, smart, and brave, but also unique and beatiful inside and out. Failsafe is definitely a book I'll be getting a physical copy of when it releases!

What a fun read for all ages! Dystopian computer based world, imaginative settings, strong female character. Read it!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2367026251

I LOVED this book! What a great read! Set in a dystopian future where an AI has taken over the world and very few humans are left. The world that the author builds is both amazing and believable. The characters are the same. Sol is both brave and vulnerable, Echo is ....... Sorry, that would be a spoiler!

I will recommend this book to anyone who will listen!. It moves along nicely without leaving out details that make the story worth reading. The only bad thing about this book is that it ends.

*I requested and received an ARC from Netgalley/ Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for a honest review*

The novel is set in a dystopian world where humans reside in settlements controlled by a network called the Interspace. They had been living like that in generations, and while everything was slightly okay in the beginning, the current state of the settlements were dire. This is where the story begins - Sol, the main character, has an ability to see through the network in her dreams, and she uses the information to scavenge for the settlements’ survival. On one of her trips, she was trapped by drones surveilling the area, and was saved by Echo, this machine/human of sort. She learns that he was out to deactivate the Interspace and decides to help him.

The concept was good. It had a lot of action sequences, so the pacing was fast in terms of events. The book did spend a lot of time setting up the romance between Sol and Echo and I found the development to be a bit cheesy. Because the romance needed to be built, the book lingered on their journey, which meant rushing the beginning and the end. The world building was sufficient enough to give a general picture. The characters were likeable.

I liked the book but I didn’t love it. I would have wanted the world building to be on a more vivid side, and the pacing of the story to be balanced. Because it focused on the romance, everything else that doesn’t relate to it was glossed over.

4.5/5 Stars

You know that moment when you have to give yourself some time to absorb that a certain story's ended before moving on to other ones? This was one of them.
I felt this strange sense of loss and happiness after reading it and I just had to lose myself in some C-drama 'cause I simply had to give it some respect. And closure. Yes, that's what I need. Closure.

Failsafe by Anela Dunn is a high-stakes, stirring YA Sci-Fi, with a side of humor to lighten the tense atmosphere. It delves into what it means to be human, and whether the cost of freedom for humanity is worth sacrificing the things you hold closest to heart.
We watch the main characters, Sol and Echo, battle with external enemies and the ones that reside within themselves as they grow into better and stronger individuals. Sol, short for 'Soleil', meaning 'Sun' in French(I guessed that from the start!), is a fiesty little firecracker with sarcasm as her weapon of defence. Regardless if she's facing the epilepsy(seizures) that brings on debilitating after-effects or an enemy that strikes terror in people's hearts she does whatever's in her power to overcome them.
Echo, on the other-hand, has his own battles even if his strength is that of a hundred men. Part human, part droid, his robotic mannerisms can be quite endearing and at times frustrating. Always the cool and collected one, his sharp intellect and with a body like titanium, it's difficult not to love the guy.

The dystopian world that Anela Dunn has constructed made me think of a mechanic body/motherboard with the drones as white blood cells that eliminate any threats, i.e. the humans.
There were plenty of moments that gave me a fuzzy, giddy-happy feeling.

Failsafe is not short of surprises, brutal realities, twists and mystery. There was one scene where my heart was wrenched out and smacked back into my body a few moments later. Oh, how cruel that was of you, Anela. I was on the verge of tears, did you know that??

Failsafe received 4.5 stars because there was some cheesiness but mainly because it's not completely unique in the YA Sci-fi/Dystopian genre BUT it's a very good one in that saturated corner of the genre. The keyword here is 'not completely', which means that it does have a freshness factor that keeps the reader wanting to know what's next. This book deserves more than ONE DOLLAR!! Don't sell yourself short!

(A more comprehensive review will be up on Phantom Paper in May.)

We live in a time when it's increasingly hard to find new sci-fi ideas, or new ways to explore old ones. But this book does a good job of the latter.

The setting is post-apocalyptic, though (as usual) we don't immediately know what cause the end. But - as always - there's a brilliant, but flawed hero(ine) who fights to do good for her people. Sound like the normal trope?

Hold on. To this world we add a digital overlay - a network intelligence that appears to control the presented world. And it isn't apparently very friendly. And, our hero can leverage the network in ways others can't. NOW we have an interesting book.

Plus, we have girl meets boy; boy turns out to be pretty different in about every way you can imagine (is he human??), girl and boy journey to rail against the machine together, and that journey is fun to read. The bad guy is both digital and physical, and is a formidable - and interesting - menace. And the climax of the story has some significant unexpected twists, and makes the whole book fun.

Using my book rating rules (http://startupdj.com/book-rating-rules ), this is a solid 4-stars, and maybe a little plus.

WOW. Just hats off on this one. I freaking LOVE and adore this book. I am so thankful that I got to read it. Sol and Echo's relationship feel organic, natural and funny. The world building is great, and you at several times in the novel feel the pressure Sol and Echo goes through. The pages turn so freaking fast in this novel and it's a good and fast read (I am supposed to be in bed, but I just couldn't put this one down!)

I started laughing, I got a bit teary eyed and most importantly for me: this mission felt like something that you'd really want to work on if you were Sol.

However, I do have a few things I'm like "I'd like to read more about this" but all in all, this book is a good read I'd highly recommend to my friends. I'm so glad that I got an ARC!

Another great synopsis that can’t hold the weight of the actual source material.

“Failsafe” takes place in a dystopian future where the human population is on its last leg thanks to technology called The Interspace, once created to be a tool now controls everything with deadly force and the only way to stop it is to upload the codes granted to the failsafe, a quiet and slightly robotic man named Echo with the help of Sol, a survivor living in the settlements with the gift of seeing the mechanics of the killer drones and holds the key to getting Echo where he needs to go and shutting down the machine once and for all.

There’s a lot going on here and one of my biggest critiques is the world building. I was with it during the beginning when we are in the ruins of what is left of humanity but the second we jumped into the action everything I looked for to give me some sort of reference point to what not even the world but the location of certain scenes was forgotten that I had the characters running their lines in front of white space. There’s very little setting elements for a good portion of this journey that really made me loose interest, I appreciate the attempts at making this character driven since that’s a plot point but there needed to be a better balance there.

On to the characters, I feel like everything that wasn’t the main duo was underdeveloped and almost character trope stand ins for what was needed to move the plot forward. You have a guy from home you’re supposed to be with but he’s controlling and physically abusive? Let’s introduce a new guy who is the exact opposite if not robotic as a replacement without ever addressing the abuse and the lack of response from the adults in the situation other than a shrug. If abuse wasn’t enough there’s also strong support for artificial insemination from the good guys (?) because the only way to save humanity is to take an unwilling girl and force her into whatever scenario they deem best to destroy the machine except for using the guy that was actually created to do so.

This was just a mess, I try very hard to always finish a book but I wanted to quit so many times because it kept getting worse. There are simpler ways to convey the message that humans have their problems but humanity and the emotions that quality elicits can be a great strength.

**thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

I’m not gonna lie, I was mesmerized by this book from the first page. I’m a sucker for dystopian novel plots. The world building was great, I felt like I was in the Matrix for a little bit. I love how the author made the main character so strong and defiant. Especially in a world where no one has ever felt the air or seen a sunset. She asked questions when no one else did.

Our main character is named Soleil. Sol for short. She is almost 18 years old and lives in one of 12 settlements that are still on earth. Apparently there are only about forty thousand humans left after a ambiguous event they called the End War. It seems that the “machines took over”. I thought of the Terminator while I read this also. Sorry; 80’s child here. We all know what happens when the machines take over. They think they’re doing right but us when they aren’t. That’s kinda the plot here. Sol eventually meets Echo, who saves her life at he very beginning of this book. Echo is strong and he heals fast. He also seems like a machine himself in some ways. Their interactions had me giggling like a school girl all morning as I read this. I really enjoyed the intrigue. Echo is mysterious. And the story only gets better when you find out why. The action is amazing. Well paced as well. I was not bored for one moment. There was a little political intrigue and a happy ending. What more could I ask for? I am hoping that there may be a sequel. I’d like to know how Sol’s final decision changed the world. Or if it did at all. I’ll give this book five stars. I just loved all of it. The author did a wonderful job and I cannot wait to read more from her.