Wayward Kitsune

What a chock full of skitz and flux?

The Murder Complex is another concrete reason why you, readers, should be wary around hyped books. Marketed as action-packed, blood-soaked, futuristic debut thriller set in a world where the murder rate is higher than the birth rate, it actually delivered based on those counts alone. In here, you will actually feel that kind of exhaustion borne from endless running and mindless hack and slash. And while you are running, you will be dripping with blood instead of sweat… because… because…I’ll tell you later.

The Murder Complex could have been the next YA phenomenon, especially that its beginning will pull you immediately. However, as soon as you find yourself getting comfortable swimming in the ocean of awesomeness, a whirlpool suddenly appears to suck you into the depths of mehness and bleakness.

So much potential has been wasted on this book. The kick ass main characters suddenly became clones of those typical annoying characters. Meadow, our heroine, is trained to kill at a very young age when the situation requires it. She has this air of being capable, focused, and of course, being badass. But all that changed when she met our hero: Zephyr. Not only she allowed herself to become distracted, but she also immersed herself in a whirlwind romance and became an indecisive mess. I was literally shaking my head every time she wallow on thoughts like these, “Kill or kiss him?” and “Kiss or kill him?” Crap, the boy almost killed her and yet, she’s right there, embracing him…hugging him… comforting him… loving him. @_@

Let’s talk about Zephyr, our supposed cold blooded murderer, but turned out to be the pansiest hero I’ve met in my life. He had been okay at first, but after meeting Meadow, he lost his edge all of a sudden. When he first laid eyes on her, he immediately knew that she’s gonna be the love of his life. Seriously? And then his nights became occupied with the thoughts of his moonlit girl…his silvery haired girl. His actions, decisions, and thoughts got lamer and lamer as the story advanced. Gods, I just want to smack him.

The storyline of The Murder Complex has a lot of action and twists and yet, it lacked any form of cohesion. Despite the bloody killings, I was utterly bored while navigating the whole story. Almost every page, one of our MCs will get involved with beating or killing someone or vice versa. Before he met Meadow, we always see Zephyr cleaning up or hauling dead bodies. You know what, I love my dystopia bloody, grisly, and disturbing. The Murder Complex has all of those but the problem was, things got excessive for my taste. When every page of the book is filled with gory scenes, things would lose its novelty by the time you’re at 50% of the story. In addition, a lot of the events in this book were illogical. It was like the author was just throwing things randomly without much care for the result.

Even the world building wasn’t that impressive. Well, it would be if you have a freaky obsession with cemeteries. There are dead bodies everywhere… on the road… in the cafeteria… at the front of your doorstep…on the stairs…There are even people who solely existed just to haul and incinerate dead bodies on a daily basis. Killing people became an important part of the culture. Speaking of technological advancement, there’s plenty of that in this book, but it needed a more solid foundation.

The Murder Complex is also abound with jargons: Flux, Skitz, Chumhead, Pins, Pulses, Leeches and a lot, lot more. If your memory is faulty, you better dive into this book with your trusty notebook and ballpen at hand because there will be no glossary that will be waiting for you at the end of the book.

Summing it up, The Murder Complex is a massive flop of a novel. It was filled with nonsensical stuff that I was completely bored. Once again, I let the hype made a fool out of me.