Clare Reviews: Wizards and Robots by will.i.am and Brian David Johnson

Title: Wizards and Robots

Author: will.i.am and Brian David Johnson

Format: ARC 

Source: Received from publisher at YALC

Pages: 311
Rating: 4/5

Blurb: When a young man breaks into her home claiming her life is in danger, Ada Luring's world changes forever. Geller is a wizard, on the run from his father's hidden clan who want to kill Ada and her mother. Sara Luring is the scientist who will create the first robot, the wizards' age-old foes.

But a robot has travelled back in time to find Ada, and will lay everything on the line to protect her, as she may just be the key to preventing the earth's destruction in the future.

Ada, Geller and the robots must learn to work together to change the past and secure the future. But they don't have much time before a mysterious enemy launches its attack on Earth...

This was just the most fun. You need to suspend disbelief a little going into this book because there is a lot going on and if you think too hard about it, it may stop making sense. But honestly I was so pleasantly surprised by how well put together this story was. And besides - I actually love reading something wacky and out there with everything happening because I read to escape to other worlds and this was a very different world!!

There are quite a few jumps in time, parts of the story are set in the past, or the present or the future but they all felt distinct and never got confusing. It felt almost cinematic in that I could picture every setting as it was written. The majority of the book takes place in the present - the main character's present anyway (2052) and I thought this was really well developed. I definitely got a good sense of the technology of the time and it even felt achievable, as if this could very well be our future (I don't know about the wizards but robots definitely seems feasible).

Ada and Geller were strong main characters. I did find I was more attached to Ada than to Geller but that is, perhaps, because she had the more relatable life. I don't have a home AI or a robot little brother but I did go to school and have friend drama. I have not, so far in my life, had to fight a magical duel or had a tyrannical wizard for a father so Geller's life definitely felt less relatable. He was however a good person and had a strong voice which made his sections just as great to read.

The plot jumps around a little. As I said there is a lot going on and some of it doesn't get a full explanation here - still waiting to learn what the heck is up with the Malum?? But for the most part it made sense and I even managed to wrap my head around the time travel which is a pretty good sign since that usually messes me up. The drama and action was pretty much nonstop throughout so there wasn't as much of a build as I would have liked and the final confrontation was over relatively quickly when I would've loved to have seen more of that. 

Overall though, this was a really fun, unique and exciting read and I am very much impressed by it. According to Goodreads this is a standalone novel but I'm really hoping that changes. Not only would I like more of these characters - I would also really, really like to learn more about the wizard side of things since this book was focused more on robots.