Kelsey's review of Black and White (The Icarus Project, #1) (original) (raw)

Top Horror from the Past Five Years

Discover new books on Goodreads

Meet your next favorite book

Kelsey's Reviews > Black and White

Black and White by Jackie Kessler

Black and White (The Icarus Project, #1)
by

6882848

I liked this book, but I think that it could have been written so much better. The book was split up between the do good hero, Jet, and the "rabid, evil genius" that is Iridium. Jackie Kessler wrote Jet's part, and Caitlin Kittredge wrote Iridium's. I've never read any of their writings before, but I found that I liked Kittredge's writing exceptionally more than Kessler's. Iridium was funny and someone I could easily relate to, whereas Jet only cared about the corporation she was working for, and about her gorgeous Runner, Bruce. The reader finds out why, of course, but I didn't buy it. The book is so long that this realization about Jet and the Corp that comes at the end feels like it should be given 100 more pages of explanation, instead of 30. I also don't think the book should have been over 400 pages long. There was a lot of things the writers could have cut out.

I also didn't like that fact that there was really no background or information given about the world the "extrahumans" live in, and that bugged me because I didn't know what half the things were, and if there was description, I would have been ok with the book being over 400 pages long. I don't know why extrahumans are even a thing. Is this new? Is this a world where they have existed since the beginning of humanity? What year is this even set in? We get clips of writing that is dated at 2112 AD, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's the year. What's the Icarus Project? What's Everyman? Everyman was a big part of this book, but there's no explanation or background on them, there's no description about gadgets or anything, so the book kind of confused me a little bit. As sort of stated above, too, the book rushes the ending. There's a huge build up to the "final battle" between good and evil (which was obviously from about half way through who the real evil was) but it's over within forty five pages or so.

My favorite parts of the novel were the flashbacks to the training Jet and Iridium received at the Academy. I thought that, for a first book, they could have just written about that, and kept it at around 200 pages, then for the second book, write about the rift between Jet and Iridium, and the battle that happens at the end. Then a third book could be Jet and Iridium dealing with what happens after this battle. That way, each book could have been 200 pages or so. Instead of one book that was close to 500 pages, we could have gotten more description and background, and it would have made more sense.

With all of that being said, the book was still ok, and it was about superheroes, so I enjoyed it. I have to say that I don't think I would have liked this book if it wasn't about superheroes, but I do plan on reading the next book in this series.

Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read_Black and White_.

Sign In »

Reading Progress

May 13, 2015 –Started Reading

May 18, 2015 –48.01% "This book is good, but I wish the authors included more background for the world within the story. I frequently catch myself wondering what certain things are and how they work, or what the world is like now (because the story is set in at least 2112 AD)"

May 19, 2015 –73.23% "Gay superheroes! But bad messages."

May 21, 2015 –Finished Reading

September 27, 2017 – Shelved as:fiction

Comments

No comments have been added yet.

Add a reference:

Search for a book to add a reference

add: link cover

Welcome back. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account.

Login animation