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In a world beset by amassing forces of darkness, one organization--the Regional Office--and its coterie of super-powered female assassins protects the globe from annihilation. At its helm, the mysterious Oyemi and her oracles seek out new recruits and root out evil plots. Then a prophecy suggests that someone from inside might bring about its downfall. And now, the Regional Office is under attack. Recruited by a defector from within, Rose is a young assassin leading the attack, eager to stretch into her powers and prove herself on her first mission. Defending the Regional Office is Sarah--who may or may not have a mechanical arm--fiercely devoted to the organization that took her in as a young woman in the wake of her mother's sudden disappearance. On the day that the Regional Office is attacked, Rose's and Sarah's stories will overlap, their lives will collide, and the world as they know it just might end. Weaving in a brilliantly conceived mythology, fantastical magical powers, teenage crushes, and kinetic fight scenes, The Regional Office Is Under Attack! is a seismically entertaining debut novel about revenge and allegiance and love. Read by Sarah Scott, Natasha Soudek, Susan Hanfield, and Mike Chamberlain.… (more)
User reviews
I would've liked a little more at the end, something that offered something more concrete of a finish, tied up just a couple more loose strings. (Is Emma alive or dead, was she magicked into existence?)
Perfect for fans of Joss Whedon (especially Dollhouse), Lexicon by Max Berry, Minority Report, and maybe fans of the Ex-Heroes series.
The narration starts with Rose. She is a teen-aged super operative with some extraordinary powers. She made me think a of a foul-mouthed Buffy. Rose is leading an attack the Regional Office.
The narration
Both are supposedly fighting the forces of evil. That leads to some interesting premises, but he book comes up short in developing much more than the premise.
The audiobook has high quality narration. I especially like the use of different narrators for the different points of view.
The humor is often self-referential - Gonzales mashes together a bunch of sci-fi movie tropes, and he doesn't shy away from the fact that that's what he's
However, I found the book to be confusing sometimes, because there are two storylines told out of chronological order, and the same characters are in both storylines, and sometimes I had trouble figuring out which was which and how they fit together.
As much as this was a fun read, there wasn't really much of a point to it. There wasn't any good vs. evil showdown, or coming of age, or surprising plot twist - it's fun, but it never really goes anywhere.
I listened to the audiobook, and it was an enjoyable way to read the book.
This book centers around a group of
Once I adjusted to the constantly changing viewpoints, this book was a lot of fun. We get a darker look at what it’s like to be super-powered, especially from young, cynical Rose, who is recruited to destroy the Office and nothing quite turns out as she expects.
I won’t say much about the plot, but I enjoyed the style of the book immensely – it was fast paced with good action scenes and I enjoyed our two main characters. I’d like to share a couple quotes.
Rose’s thoughts about training to be a super assassin:
“[It would be like] An Officer and a Gentleman, but without the gentleman bit. Her pitted against the hard-ass drill sergeant. She’d be the spitfire who constantly mouthed off and who would ultimately reveal herself to be pitted against her inner demons, not the drill sergeant at all, and in the process develop a bond with her fellow trainees, becoming in their eyes an example of what not to do, of how not to act, but also, in the end, by the end of boot came or whatever this place was, becoming for them, also, an example of a hard battle fought and won with difficulty, tenacity, and through her indomitable spirit and unfathomable skill.”
A letter to Sarah:
“We navigate through like with the good-faith hope that we are doing our best, that we are aimed in the right directions, that we are helping the helpless. Maybe we slip, maybe we mess up, maybe from time to time we do things that are less the right thing. Or we cut corners, or we make choices that serve our interests over the interests of those who depend on us, or we hide the consequences of the decisions we have made with the hope that those consequences will never be seen despite how often we make those same decisions. We go back to the ones we love when clearly they do not love us, or do not know how to love us, or show us their love in a way easily mistaken for hate. We are weak in the face of the hard work it sometimes takes to be strong. We convince ourselves (incorrectly) that silence is not a form of consent. We let good people die and sometimes we kill them ourselves and we hide and we hid and we hide and soon hiding becomes the thing we are best at doing.”
It's a pretty odd book, but not because of the fantastical elements. In fact, those mostly consist of a collection of fun but familiar fantasy/superhero/action movie tropes (albeit with an interestingly original idea here and there). It's more the way those tropes are approached that's odd, as if the novel's focus is constantly just a little to the left of where you'd expect it to be, taking for granted or leaving unexplained things that most stories would make a point of concentrating on, while focusing on details that most stories would largely ignore.
The structure is also odd. Mostly it features the POV of one of two women, each on a different side of the conflict. Within each POV section, very short chapters alternate rapidly between the present action and that character's past, sometimes even featuring flashbacks within the flashbacks. Which maybe isn't too weird, but then there are the sections that are supposedly extracted from a scholarly analysis of the events written many years later, which are full of details that may or may not have happened, presented in a decidedly unobjective style that makes you wonder just who these future scholars are and exactly what they know. Oh, and then there's the interlude that's written largely in first person plural...
Not all of this works equally well, I think, but parts of it work brilliantly. In the end, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it all, or quite what I make of it, but reading it was an interesting experience, and mostly an enjoyable one. And I kind of have to admire its audacity.
But overall, a fantastic read from Riverhead Books with my full recommendation!