By Quentin Monasterial
Courier Staff Reporter
It’s a bird. It’s a plane–no, it’s Superman!
Just kidding. It’s just Ciere and her crew preparing for their next job. And no, I don’t mean “job” as in bagging groceries, flipping burgers, or filing paperwork at the office. I mean, “job” as in a not-so-legal job. As in a job that criminals–particularly the non-violent ones–partake in to make a living, like a heist job.
In the novel Illusive, author Emily Loyd-Jones pulls us into Ciere Giba’s world of crime and scandal, but Loyd-James reveals that criminals aren’t always the terrible, psychopathic monsters that our society envisions them as. She shows that sometimes people are sucked into it unwillingly, and inescapably.
Taking place in slightly futuristic society recently ravaged by what they call the MK virus, Ciere has no choice but live a life of crime after she is left orphaned by the government. Why did the government do this?
Well, the plague didn’t eradicate itself; a vaccine was developed to halt this epidemic, but it had some very unprecedented, very…unique side effects: a very small fraction of the human population developed special abilities. This is good news for you fans of X-Men, but bad news for those of you who require at least some sort of logical explanation behind this phenomena, which unfortunately the author does not provide.
The government, apparently, was interested in (according to the main characters) using these superhumans for their own agenda, such as–surprise–creating a super army of which no other nation could stand against.
As the government catches wind of the possibility of the cure–the same one that caused the emersion of superhuman abilities–still existing, Ciere and her crew come across a job that lands them right in the middle of it, their fates intertwined. Especially since one of Ciere’s closest friend is working with the government against his will, thanks to one of those superhuman abilities of which allows the user to manipulate others.
In this action-packed and quick-paced adventure, readers are able to experience the superheroes-gone-criminals twist of Loyd-James’ world; in the eyes of the said superheroes-gone-criminals, and see first hand what happens when crime and government clash as they travel along their ill-fated paths in pursuit of the one thing that everyone seems to want.
