BOOK TOUR: Assured Destruction

Assured Destruction by Michael F. Steward

ISBN: 0981269948 

Pages: 185

Source: Xpresso Book Tours

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Summary:

You can learn a lot about someone looking through their hard drive...
Sixteen-year-old Jan Rose knows that nothing is ever truly deleted. At least, not from the hard drives she scours to create the online identities she calls the Shadownet.
Hobby? Art form? Sad, pathetic plea to garner friendship, even virtually? Sure, Jan is guilty on all counts. Maybe she’s even addicted to it. It’s an exploration. Everyone has something to hide. The Shadownet’s hard drives are Jan’s secrets. They're stolen from her family’s computer recycling business Assured Destruction. If the police found out, Jan’s family would lose its livelihood. 
When the real people behind Shadownet’s hard drives endure vicious cyber attacks, Jan realizes she is responsible. She doesn’t know who is targeting these people or why but as her life collapses Jan must use all her tech savvy to bring the perpetrators to justice before she becomes the next victim.

Hello everyone! Welcome to my Tour Stop for the Assured Destruction Blog Tour!! The tour schedule is linked to the banner up there! Well, let's get into the review!!

Jan Rose is a computer wiz, she helps her mom run their technology junkyard store called Assured Destruction where people can come and give them old hard drives to completely destroy. What Jan has found is that you can learn a lot about someone when you go through their hard drives. With the help of a bunch of "recycled" hard drives, Jan creates her Shadownet made up of several computers that are linked together, except for Gramps, the ancient computer who's not even connected to the Internet. Shadownet is her home and her family, but suddenly the real people whose hard drives Jan took to create the network start getting attacked and all the evidence points to her. 

Assured Destruction was such a fun read! I loved all the techie-ness and savvy gadgets that were mentioned. The computers themselves were pretty awesome. Paradise57 is artistic and intuitive. Frannie is innocent and sweet. JanusFlyTrap is virtual Jan. Gramps is Jan's "Magic 8" ball, her mentor so to speak. Heckleena is probably my favorite because she made me laugh the most with her sarcasm and haughtiness. The community that Jan creates through these computers is really cool. It also screams about the power of technology. It's kinda mind-blowing how advance technology is these days. Twitter plays a huge part in this story, especially Jan's rescue. *mini-spoiler* It might have gotten me on a Twitter surfing spree...might have. But yeah, so cool!

Jan kind of reminds me a teeny tiny bit of Cath from Fangirl because they are both socially awkward people in real life but super duper popular once you hit them up on the Internet. Jan and her little group have a ton of subscribers on Twitter and their tweets are super entertaining to read. As a character, she was okay. She didn't really stand out to me but she wasn't horrible. She was ... pleasantly cool. I'm using that word a ton in this book but that's really how you describe the whole book. Since this is a trilogy, I'm guessing that more will be revealed in the next two books which I am super excited about. I can't wait to learn more about Jan and hopefully, develop a friendship/connection. :)

One last thing that I want to mention is the whole "attack" that plays as our conflict of the story. Let me tell you, the actual perpetrator came as a complete surprise to me. I definitely wasn't expecting it. On the other hand, the whole conflict outlined the power of cyber bullying. How people can so easily upload things over the net and how it will always stay there and how it affects the victim. It was really interesting to see how Michael F. Steward wove that into the plot. Another thing I loved was the emphasis on the importance of family. Jan likes to be alone, but she learns that sometime it's great to have your family have your back. That part of the book was pretty heartwarming and definitely made me smile.

Overall, definitely recommend the book. Even if you're not into tech like me, I still think you'll become wrapped up in the story and enjoy it a lot! :)

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Author Bio:

After crewing ships in the Antarctic and the Baltic Sea and some fun in venture capital, Michael anchored himself (happily) to a marriage and a boatload of kids. Now he injects his adventurous spirit into his writing with brief respites for research into the jungles of Sumatra and Guatemala, the ruins of Egypt and Tik’al, paddling the Zambezi and diving whatever cave or ocean reef will have him. He is a member of the International Thriller Writers and SF Canada, and the author of the Assured Destruction series, 24 Bones, The Sand Dragon, Hurakan, Ruination and several award winning graphic novels for young adults. His most recent project, The Terminals, has been optioned for television by Sudden Storm Entertainment.

Michael lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife and four daughters. He tries very hard to keep life an adventure both on and off the page. Please come find me on Goodreads.

Author Links:

http://michaelfstewart.com/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2969126.Michael_F_Stewart

https://twitter.com/michaelFstewart

https://www.facebook.com/mikefstewart

4/5 stars

Foreverly Obsessed,