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C. B. Lee: Not Your Backup (2019, Duet Books) 4 stars

Emma Robledo has a few more responsibilities than the usual high school senior, but then …

Review of 'Not Your Backup' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I'm not used to reading ARCs but I was excited to get my hands on this one.

This book was amazing and but in the first two brilliantly. There was almost no point that felt slow it boring, where the first two had some moments that dragged a bit.

My only real complaint is one scene in particular that pretty much no one but me would have a problem with. I just happen to be one of what is probably less than a handful of readers who could pick this scene apart.

The scene that doesn't work for me is the roller coaster scene. A power surge fries a generator and traps guests in the ride for about 15 minutes (probably less). The reason this doesn't work for me is because I am a ride operator, primarily on a thrill ride. My ride isn't technically a roller coaster, but it is adjacent to one and the average layman would probably call it one.

But on rides like this, stops and evacuations are common. The roller coaster my ride is near has stops every single day. Most of the time, people aren't left on the ride long enough to worm their way out of the restraints. And we certainly have the ability, with today's technology, to manually move a roller coaster train in the event of power loss so people can get off safely.

Perhaps it's an odd thing to break my suspension of disbelief. But there it is. It probably doesn't help that I read this part during work on a day where we had to do an evacuation of the ride for similar technical problems. If I could, I would suggest adding something that could destroy the track. That would cause real panic. But a power dip would be easy for the regular employees to 'save' the guests from, especially considering this takes place in a technologically advanced future.

But that's just a small complaint about a single scene. I'm sure there are far more people out there that read that scene and figured it worked just fine. The rest of the book is wonderful and action packed and I highly recommend picking this series up if you haven't yet.