Book Review: ‘Livewire’ by Sarah Raughley a Valiant Universe Novel
Amanda McKee is a model and a beauty influencer. She doesn’t really fit the traditional mold for those roles, but when your adopted daddy has the kind of money that Toyo Harada does, you get to do whatever you want. Amanda is presenting an award at the Valiant Pop Awards when suddenly two robot-looking figures crash through the roof fighting each other. One triumphs, comes straight over to Amanda, and says, “Amanda McKee, I’m here to kill you.” And so begins Amanda’s frantic adventure in Livewire by Sarah Raughley.
[Note: While I am reviewing this novel independently and honestly, it should be noted that it has been provided to me by Blackstone Publishing for the purpose of this review. Warning: My review of Livewire contains some spoilers!]
Livewire is a new Valiant origin story
Amanda is a model, influencer, and the adopted daughter of maybe the richest man on Earth. But she is also the world’s only psiot. She can communicate with and control machines telepathically. Her father, Toyo Harada, has created an entire secret organization, the Harbinger Foundation, to study Amanda. He wants to use her abilities to help all of mankind. Amanda mostly wants to use her abilities to change the channel on the TV and spread gossip through her online alter ego Livewire.
Then Matsuoka Sho shows up. He is from the future, and his mission is to kill Amanda. But he just can’t do it. Instead he tells her that she and her father destroy mankind. Amanda is appalled. She doesn’t believe him and just wants to talk to her father about Sho’s claims. Before she can, more armored soldiers appear from the future and carry her father off. Now Amanda has the dual goals of saving her father and saving the world. Can she do both, or is Sho right? Are she and Toyo going to destroy the world?
A mixture of sci-fi and romance in a teenager’s world
Just like Bloodshot, the first Valiant novel, Livewire focuses on younger protagonists than Marvel and DC heroes. Amanda isn’t even old enough to have a driver’s license yet, but she has powers that she uses to destroy people’s lives. Like Bloodshot, she starts off as more of a villain than a hero. She’s very selfish and doesn’t understand the gravity of the powers that she controls. To be fair, most 15-year-olds wouldn’t understand the gravity of such awesome powers, and any child raised to look down on everyone else is going to be selfish.
The good thing is that Amanda has a good heart underneath it all. She doesn’t want to be a bad person. And finding out that she’s the cause of humanity’s downfall sobers her right up. She doesn’t want to believe that her father would do what Sho says he does. But she isn’t stupid enough to allow it to happen either. Amanda wants to be good, and that push and pull is what drives this story.
Livewire might be driven by Amanda’s desire to save humanity and her father, but that isn’t all that’s happening in the story. Amanda is still a hormone-filled teenager. So when a handsome, sensitive, time-traveling boy literally falls out of the sky, she can’t help but be attracted. Sho and Amanda are both young teens without any real experience, so their romance is very slow-moving and awkward. It’s cute as can be to read as they fumble around. I imagine many teenage readers will be able to relate to this more fumbling approach to romance and will see themselves in Amanda and Sho’s awkwardness more than they do in the smooth operators that usually fill books.
Amanda McKee is an interesting mix of worldly and naive
When I started reading Livewire, I was a little confused. Amanda kept referring to herself as the only psiot in the world. Having read Bloodshot back in January, I knew that there were tons of psiots in the Valiant Universe. But as I read, I realized that Amanda was being gaslit by her adopted father. I’m really not sure how Amanda didn’t realize that she was being lied to. An organization with facilities all over the world being created to study just one person doesn’t make any sense. But I suppose if it’s what you’ve been told your whole life by your father, you might not question it.
This trusting little girl who believes everything her daddy tells her stands in sharp contrast to the Amanda who uses her abilities to destroy people’s lives. That Amanda knows how to identify a damaging secret and isn’t afraid to weaponize that knowledge. How she can so easily see through other people but never question her father is weird to me. It’s this misplaced trust that ruins the world the first time around, according to Sho. And Amanda fights against that trust throughout Livewire. If she isn’t able to get out from under her father’s gaslighting, the world will be doomed. The interesting thing is that Amanda doesn’t want to be bad. She wants to do good and be accepted. That’s all anyone wants, and seeing how very wrong things can go, bad people taking advantage of that basic human desire is both sad and scary.
Sarah Raughley continues to flesh out the Valiant Universe in Livewire
Back in January, Bloodshot opened the Valiant Universe in novel format. Bloodshot introduced us to a whole lot of different psiots with the potential to become heroes. In Livewire, we’re given a very in-depth look at just one psiot. We get Amanda McKee’s whole origin story. In fact, we get one version of her entire story. Then we get to see her redeem herself and go from villain to hero. Seeing a confused, and honestly abused, young girl free herself from those traumatic patterns and make a better world not just for herself but for others like her is inspirational.
My rating for this book: 7/10
Amanda starts out as a very whiny and, frankly, annoying character, but by the end of Livewire, she’s a great character who is obviously going to be a pillar of the Valiant Universe. Livewire by Sarah Raughley is now available wherever books are sold.
Also check out: Book Review: The Eternal Warrior by Ari Marmell a Valiant Universe Novel
