Linkage:

"Three years after the disbandment of Team Galactic...

A vigilante goes after the grunts who remain. The Champion is kidnapped. And a conspiracy so earth shattering is born, that it takes two to solve it."Genre: Action, Romance

Linkage is a very unique book, loosely basing the book off of Pokémon Colosseum and the Sinnoh games, or at least, what happened after the events of the two games. The villains from both games, Cyrus and Fein, have teamed up to try to take over Sinnoh by turning the people into shadow people. It's up to Cynthia and Wes to stop them before the entire region is under their control.

While I've never played Pokémon Colosseum, I could still follow the book pretty well since the author used very clear descriptions of the characters and scattered the backstory of that game throughout the book. This is the first book I've ever seen that uses the characters from Pokémon Colosseum, along with some of the unique concepts from it, such as shadow Pokémon. I naturally enjoyed it because of this unique take.

While the Pokémon universe is amazing, I loved how the author incorporated something that was clearly a passion of hers engineering. I know nothing about engineering, and it's something that doesn't seem like it would fit into the world of Pokémon. At least, it doesn't seem like it would at first. I was glad to be proven wrong when some of the problems were fixed through engineering, along with some comedic relief through engineering jokes like *SPOILERS* the whole bomb-looking phone. I had to look up a picture of what this would look like, and yes, a phone made from scratch is definitely frightening and would look like a bomb. Apparently, anything simplified to the wires and motherboards are just things that look like bombs. *SPOILERS END*. While I had to look a lot of this stuff up in the beginning, I wasn't exactly sure what the point of this would be later in the book.

That is until the ending came. I loved how engineering wasn't just some side-personal interest that didn't have any sort of purpose. *SPOILERS* It was towards the end of the story when our heroes realized Cyrus and Fein used engineering to create a machine to turn people evil. Our heroes realized if they could reverse engineer the machine, they could snap people out of their trance and stop Cyrus and Fein from taking over *SPOILERS END*. Incorporating real life career goals into this was a really interesting take, and it was just really nice to read. The only sad part to it is that I couldn't connect to what was actually going on. Lots of what I've read went over my head so that I had to reread or ask for clarification, but that was more because I wasn't aware of the engineering science behind it. Once I did figure it out, this material was a bit clearer.

Another thing I really enjoyed in this book was the characters. True, I've never played Pokémon Colosseum, so Wes is a character I was unfamiliar with. From what I could gather in the book, he did something bad that made him want to redeem himself. It wasn't until the end that it clearly stated what happened. All that aside, his character development was realistic. It took him a while to trust Cynthia, who was trying to get him to open up. As I slowly started to learn about his backstory through the book, I realized how much of a smart choice this was when it came to plot development. *SPOILERS* It wasn't until Wes saw his old friend Rui one last time that he realized he had to let go of the past. Moving on from someone you love, whether that person has passed away or has left you broken hearted, is always a challenge. I loved that this scene gave closure for that and allowed him to finally move on *SPOILERS END*. Before then, I could tell Wes was trying hard to change, but it wasn't working. He needed a wake up call, and that was the perfect way to incorporate more of his backstory.

While he wasn't ready to move on, I loved that Cynthia was. In this story, her ex-boyfriend was Steven Stone. I'll admit, I was a bit confused as to what happened between her and Steven that made them break-up. *SPOILERS* All that is known is that Steven did the rituals with Cynthia, and broke up afterwards *SPOILERS END*. True to Cynthia's character in the anime and game, she was able to move on and go towards what she believed in without second thinking. She moved on faster, which, again, I think proves to be true in some relationships where some people can get over it faster than others.

What I don't understand is Steven Stone's character. While he's a minor character who is really just mentioned until the end, he seems a bit out of character. He is only character in the book that doesn't really match up to any of the franchise characterization of him. From what I've gathered from the gen 3 games and anime, Steven Stone is this polite, punctual, and very formal guy. Here, it just seems like he's a bit of a jerk, breaking Cynthia's heart and then *SPOILERS* wanting to get back with her in the end seemingly because she saved Sinnoh. Though he doesn't say that, it just kind of came off that way due to the timing *SPOILERS END*. It just doesn't add up. While a lot of people will ship Cynthia and Steven together, he just doesn't seem like the kind of guy to go breaking people's hearts unless something happened. Then again, this is all background information, and as the reader, I don't really know much as to what happened. Maybe exploring this area a bit might help bring some clarification to this.

The only thing that just bugs me about this story are the villains. They're evil, want to get revenge from losing in previous fights against the heroes, and are really well-written in this sense. What I just don't understand is why Cyrus seems like a sidekick in the story. Because I grew up on the games of Diamond and Pearl, I was hoping to see him be more predominant in the story. After all, he did try to make his own universe in the games, defying space and time. Seeing him just be a side character to Fein was a bit iffy to me. *SPOILERS* I thought he would be the person Cynthia would battle in the end of the book, since Wes's main rival is Fein and Cyrus is Cynthia's in a sense. That doesn't mean I didn't like having Dawn as the final opponent. It made sense considering everything that was done before *SPOILERS END*. I just wish I would've seen Cyrus more as a villain than some side character considering the events that have happened in the games.

Beyond that, everything is just amazing to read. Grammar-wise, it's hard to find mistakes (which always makes me happy to see as a reader), and I really enjoyed reading the plot. There were so many twists and turns I wasn't expecting to happen. The entire book kept me on my toes as to what was going to happen next.

One of my favorite things about this was how high the stakes were. At one point in the book, I could remember thinking that there was absolutely no way Cynthia and Wes would be able to make it out of the situation they were in. This happened a lot, but more so when *SPOILERS* Wes was made into a shadow person. I remembered reading it the entire time, hoping he would remember the moment he saw Cynthia, but when he didn't, I was disappointed. Not that being disappointed was a bad thing. Moreso, I was disappointed that after all they've been through, he didn't recognize her. This made me afraid during that part that it could've been the end for Cynthia. I was happy that it wasn't, which lead to more of the story to happen. With him acting the way he did, I was able to feel Cynthia's pain of being backstabbed. By the time he was finally able to snap out of it, I was able to breathe, and that's always fun to read when an author knows how to toys with one's emotions *SPOILERS END*.

While there isn't much about Pokémon besides being a side character, I genuinely enjoyed the final battle scene. For a book that centered around one of the champions and did a lot of traveling, one would think there would be a ton of battle scenes, but I liked that it didn't happen that way. If it did, it would've been forced. There was so much more character development and advancement in the plot, I didn't even realize the lack of battle scenes until the final battle. It was high intensity, and what I enjoyed was that the commentary given between the two trainers. Not all battles have to be attack after attack, so seeing that there were taunts thrown around by the trainers was really thrilling to read.

Beyond that, I loved how many quotable moments there were. It's hard finding a phrase that will resonate with a reader, but in this book, there were many powerful moments. *SPOILERS* My all time favorite was when Wes was in one of the rituals and was facing an evil Cynthia, who was trying to bring him down. It was at this point he realized something. "'Love is everything,' said Wes. 'It is the linkage between me, you, and everything important in this world. Without love, what point is there in fighting, existing?'" (Chapter 25) *SPOILERS END*. This particular part moved me because it's so true, and it was what the title of the story was referencing. There were many parts like this, but in particular, this quote was powerful and showed how much Wes had changed from the beginning of the book.

Overall, Linkage is an amazing book. The plot line and how it progresses to get worse and worse, the character development that made me just fall in love with everything, and the details that were thrown in there made it very enjoyable to read. All I'd have to say was that I wasn't sold on the villains towards the end and the way Steven Stone was portrayed. With that being the only thing I have to really say about the book, I'm proud to give the book the a rating of...

9/10. Awesome story! I loved every minute of reading it. The author should feel proud with the work that she's put in it since it's truly a wonderful story. 

Linkage is a book that is right up my street. Wes, an engineer and vigilante, and Cynthia are forced to work together after the mysterious disappearance of Dawn Hikari. Along the way they form an interesting psychic link between each other, allowing them to sometimes be able to feel the other's thoughts and sometimes even see visions of their past or future. With the promise of engineering, crime drama and an interesting concept that could result in a lot of tension, you might think that I would really, really enjoy this book. However, there's just one tiny little problem. This book is awful.

Now that sounds a little harsh, but put simply the execution of absolutely everything in this book is average at best and utterly abysmal at worst. Remember all of those things the book promises to be? It's not really about those things. It's not really about anything. The plot is so unfocused and messy, so poorly thought out that I genuinely do not understand what is going on.

At the very beginning of the book, it is made obvious to the reader that Wes is Sinnoh's vigilante. It is also made abundantly clear that Cynthia does not approve of vigilantism. For the first few chapters, it seems to be her mission to catch the vigilante, and this has me all sorts of excited. Wes and Cynthia are working together, but Cynthia fundamentally opposes the very principle of Wes' secret life. Given that the reader knows this but Cynthia does not should create dramatic irony and should result in many high tension scenes eventually resulting in the dramatic reveal which should have a massive emotional impact on the reader. Instead, this moment falls completely flat.

The reason that this major plot thread leaves no impact whatsoever on the reader is that it wasn't focused on in the slightest. Cynthia's distaste for the vigilante is mentioned all of once. Her investigation into the vigilante is forgotten after the first three chapters. When the reveal eventually happens, the reader has forgotten that it is even important. Here is the particularly impactful reveal:

"But why am I out here?"

"I figured you should know if we're working together," he said. "I'm sinnoh's vigilante."

It was in that moment, that Cynthia was horrified.

This is, frankly, terrible. This reveal comes completely out of nowhere and is done far too quickly. I don't understand why the author didn't dedicate more of the book to Cynthia piecing together clues and eventually figuring out who the vigilante is. This would help to create the tension I alluded to earlier. As Cynthia picks up more clues and figures more things out, she could get closer to discovering the true identity of the vigilante until when the big reveal eventually happens, the release of tension is so great that the reader is forced into feeling the emotional impact.

Ignoring the uncapitalised "sinnoh's" for a moment, there is another glaring error from this extract. We are told that Cynthia is horrified... and that's it. That's all we get. The age old advice of show don't tell should definitely apply here. Countless times throughout the book we are explicitly told how characters feel. The author does this in short, succinct sentences, and it never, ever leaves any impact on the reader. Each time this happens, it is so painfully simple it makes for cringeworthy reading. Here's a personal favourite of mine after Wes' good friend Saturn had *SPOILERS* been captured and turned into a Shadow Human *SPOILERS END*:

As his best friend, Wes felt bad for Saturn.

I'm sorry, but this is not how you describe emotions. A single sentence is not enough to describe something so completely complex as emotions. At the very least, Wes should be in tears. He should need to stop and do... something to try and process the terrible news. Instead, the plot moves on and forgets about it completely, much like it does with all of its plot threads.

The biggest culprit of forgettable plot threads is the kidnapping of Dawn Hikari. One would assume given the description and opening chapters of the book that the literal kidnapping of the champion would have some sort of bearing on the plot. It doesn't. The promise of some sort of crime drama or investigative detective book is, put simply, a lie. Between Dawn's kidnapping and her sudden reappearance, there is a grand total of one scene regarding her. During this scene, the police find her hat and they conclude... nothing. And then the subplot is forgotten until this happens:

"Byron called me. And then a Lt. Dunnan told me to relay to you that Dawn Hikari is holding a press conference in three days."

"Which means I lose investigative authority...and Wes does too," she said.

This is the conclusion to one of the major threads in the book. The kidnapped champion just randomly shows up and somehow, somehow, nobody bats an eyelid. You would think that Cynthia would be some mixture of shocked, confused and happy but she's just sort of... vaguely disappointed? The characters in this book are just not human. It's the only possible explanation for the way they react to the world around them. Their emotions work by the flick of a switch; sometimes they can cry at a moment's notice, and sometimes they can shrug off major reveals like it's nothing.

Speaking of characters, I really, thoroughly dislike this depiction of Cynthia. Cynthia happens to be one of my favourite canon characters, but this version of her is just bizarre. She's not really kind or caring, she's not even all that strong, she's just rude and even mean at times. At one point in the book, she literally beats someone into unconsciousness for literally no reason. How this is supposed to be an accurate depiction of Cynthia I do not understand. I assume the author thought this was justified due to a vague connection to Darkrai. The problem is, this connection is so vaguely established, so fleetingly mentioned, that I just don't understand what it really is.

The mistake of extreme vagueness and confusing writing is littered throughout the book. The author clearly tries to be mysterious with a lot of their writing but it just does not work. The idea of a mystery is to give the reader enough information to figure out what is going on, not to give them such little information, and information so cryptic that they are left feeling totally confused. When the solution to a mystery is given, the reader should cry out, "Oh, of course! It all makes sense now!", but for that to happen the reader first has to understand what is actually happening. When giving important explanations, you absolutely must be explicit. It must be clear to the reader what is happening.

The minor characters in the book are certainly minor characters. They don't really have memorable personalities, and the vast majority of them don't show up enough to leave any real impression. This becomes a problem when Wes begins to think that someone in the police force is working with Team Galactic. He runs through a list of suspects, but since the reader barely knows who they are, the reader cannot make their own judgement and so any interesting mystery element is lost entirely.

The romance in the book is beyond weird. Given how lacklustre and messy the plot is, you might expect the focus to be on the romance. You would be right, but that doesn't mean it's actually any good. Wes and Cynthia just sort of exist in the same world and eventually declare their love for each other. It's not really built up to, it doesn't really leave an emotional impact on the reader, it doesn't make for a satisfying ending, nor does it make up for the book's many, many shortcomings.

Reading the book, I get the feeling that the romance is supposed to be what saves the whole thing. The plot takes a bit of a back seat and the romance drives everything forward, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It's a romance book! Of course the romance is important. But if you're going to go down that road, you must, absolutely must make your reader emotionally invested in the romance. If the romance feels empty, the whole book feels empty. The reason that this romance falls completely and utterly flat is simply down to sloppy writing.

If I wasn't writing a review, I would've stopped reading this book very quickly. and that is down to boring, simplistic writing. The reason that every major story beat, every single reveal has no impact on the reader is because the writing does not draw the reader in. The reader cannot get invested in a book that is boring. The words the author uses serve only to tell a story. They do not paint a picture, they do not interest, they do not excite, they just simply exist.

The most obvious way the writing fails is sentence structure. Here is an excellent example of a paragraph with no variety to its sentence structure at all:

Glasses. Big, bulky metal glasses. They sat on a registration table, face up. She remembered the book she had in her hand. What a great fortune! She had something to exploit. Her smile grew larger as she spotted tufts of blonde hair. This was exactly what she needed. Law and order would reign free, and she was at leave to ask him about the book she gripped so dearly in her hand. The engineer would fess up.

This passage isn't terrible on its own, but when it is but one of countless paragraphs structured in this way, it really starts to become noticeable. Short sentences are a great tool and can add excellent emphasis to your writing, but they lose all impact, all meaning when your writing consists entirely of short, dull sentences. If, however, your writing is built up of varied sentence lengths, some short and sweet, some made up of a few clauses, and some that stretch on for so long and take so many twists and turns that you just can't predict when the end is coming, then your writing will be vastly improved. It will have the impact it so desperately lacks and so desperately needs.

This will be very clear if you read the book out loud. The words just... have no flow to them. It makes for very stop-start reading and is an overall jarring experience. The reader simply cannot get invested in your writing if the writing itself takes you out of the book. Other issues in this area are strange word choices, odd orderings of words and sometimes words that just shouldn't even be there at all. Take this example:

Cynthia, the more she thought about the strange man in blue, the more she became interested.

This sentence would make perfect sense if the word "Cynthia" was omitted. Its very presence is confusing and bizarre, and it is examples like this that really hinder the book from achieving literally everything it tries to achieve.

Now, it is clear to me reading this that the book was rushed. The total lack of focus of any major plot thread and the numerous spelling and grammar mistakes make that very obvious. It isn't the case that the author doesn't know what they're doing; there aren't really any major recurring mistakes, but the whole book is littered with typos, dialogue formatting mistakes, capitalisation errors and general inconsistencies that make the book harder to read. Sometimes Pokémon is capitalised and sometimes it has an accent over the "e". Sometimes it doesn't. I would suggest a major edit. Just read through the whole book slowly and out loud and fix all the little mistakes. At least give the book some polish.

The rushed nature of the book would also explain another major issue. The pacing. It feels like either nothing is happening or everything is happening all at once. There are several chapters in the book which are virtually redundant, but there are also chapters in which so much happens it is impossible to keep up. This example perfectly illustrates the issue:

And perhaps he was right, because early in the morning, in those few minutes after sunrise Cynthia woke Wes up. Why? Because the gym was surrounded by Team Galactic. And Team Galactic had taken over Canalave City.

There is no build up. There is no clue that this was going to happen. It just does. It happens so quickly that the reader has no time to process the information. Yet again, there is no impact. There are so many instances of events that clearly should take large lengths of time that take place in the span of half a sentence. There are multiple journeys to Fullmoon Island and back that aren't described at all. Granted, this isn't exactly an exciting journey, but you have to at least make the reader feel as if there is some passing of time.

The dialogue is another problem area. The way characters talk and interact is just so weird. Here's an example of a relatively standard piece of dialogue:

"I'm looking for Wes," he replied. "Wes borrowed the police gear and didn't come back. I'm trying to find his apartment because I'm concerned."

You might notice something off about this but you might not quite be able to put your finger on what. For the most part, this dialogue is fine, it serves its purpose. It tells us what Kowalski is doing and how he is feeling. But therein lies the problem. It's not that the dialogue conveys this information, he just outwardly says that information. There is no subtext, he just said exactly how he feels. Had this exchange have gone more like this it would've felt much more natural:

"You haven't seen Wes have you?" Kowalski asked with a frown.

"No, why?" Cynthia replied

Kowalski grimaced and scratched the back of his head. "He borrowed some scuba gear but never brought it back. You don't know where his apartment is do you?"

You might notice I really didn't change much there. All I did was add in a small exchange with Cynthia and delete the last sentence, ridding the line of the kind of clunky, on-the-nose dialogue that is present all throughout the book. Despite the omission of the line where Kowalski tells us exactly how he feels, we still know how he feels because of the subtext. This is a case where show don't tell applies. Dialogue doesn't need to be realistic per se, but it does need to feel real, and generally speaking, people don't go around announcing exactly how they feel. They feel those feelings and they show them. They don't say them.

If you couldn't tell, I really, really dislike this book. It almost makes it worse that its core concepts and ideas were so promising that I was genuinely excited to read it, but its execution was so utterly dismal that the only feelings I was left with were sheer disappointment and frustration. There is a good book hiding away somewhere; it's just so well hidden, so well buried under the absolute mess that is Linkage that it would be very, very difficult to salvage it.

2.5/10 - Had potential but the execution was awful.

In my opinion, the greatest strength of Linkage is its concept. At its heart are two amazing characters: Cynthia, former champion of the Sinnoh region, backed by the full strength of her team plus amazing new aura powers, and Wes, hero of the Orre region now reinforced with military training and formidable engineering skills. Both receive expanded back stories. We get glimpses into the political realities of being a league champion. We see Wes struggling with his past as a member of the evil team Snagem and whether he can ever truly redeem himself.

And, perhaps most importantly, we get the concept alluded to in the title of the book. By taking part in a mystical ritual, Wes and Cynthia become spiritually bound to one another, each one able to feel what the other is feeling, able to detect the other person's presence and location, and sometimes even able to see what the other is seeing. With this alone, the possibilities for what the story could explore are nearly endless.

I was actually disappointed that the story didn't use that concept to its full extent. It showed a great amount of promise at the very start, when Wes and Cynthia were each exposed to scenes from the other's past. There is something inherently intimate about knowing so much about a person, especially when it comes to knowing about the parts of a person's past that they normally would not share with anyone. This should have been a great kick start to the development of the romance plot line, creating a mix of attraction from gaining a deep understanding of the other person and tension from having their own secrets revealed before they were ready. There was a little bit of this at first, but then it just sort of fizzled.

That's the biggest problem I had with this book in a nutshell. There were so many great moments, fantastic ideas, and action packed scenes: riding across the lake on the Lapras with its descriptions of the natural world around and the simple romance of the two holding each other, Cynthia dominating the bad guys with her Pokémon and fiery blue aura powers flowing from her body, the heart breaking scene involving Wes's beloved Espeon and Umbreon (no spoilers, but you know what I'm talking about if you read it), and just about the entire final battle. This book seemed to have all the ingredients for success, and yet it ultimately just fell flat.

The reason, for me, is that the plot was so disjointed that it often felt like a bunch of random things happening one after the other. When plucked out of their context, individual scenes are great, but inside of the greater whole, they often arrive with little explanation as to why the characters got to this point at all. Unless I missed something, I don't believe that the book ever explained what Saturn has been doing with himself since the defeat of Cyrus or why Wes is friends with this former (?) Team Galactic Commander while simultaneously rounding up Team Galactic grunts. It certainly wasn't explained why Cynthia was hanging out at a festival instead of a) keeping herself safe while doing important duties as the top-secret acting champion or b) out looking for the actual champion who's been kidnapped. The entire plot line of Dawn being missing is characterized by an on-again-off-again search for her that honestly makes it feel like no one really cares about her.

There's far more that I could mention, but I'm going to give an example of something that didn't make sense in a different way, which was why Wes reads about Cresselia and Darkrai and remembers that he "once read a reference to these pokemon in passing" when just three chapters earlier Wes met Cresselia and got a Lunar Wing from her in order to cure nightmares caused by Darkrai. I mention this because it makes me wonder if the author of this book wrote it in such a way that she forgot things she had already written and where she had left off. I wonder if she wrote it in bits and pieces with a lot of time apart or if she was pushing out updates when she didn't quite have the time for them. Because some parts of the book just feel like the author's heart wasn't really in them.

That's a real shame because, in spite of all the typos (another thing which makes me wonder about chapters being rushed or pushed out half-heartedly) and some comma issues, I know that the author is capable of writing really well. What this book needs is for Wes and Cynthia to each have a clear cut set of desires and motivations that drive them through the story so that each decision they make is understandable and each success or failure to reach their goals resonates with the audience. I would have enjoyed this story so much more if I hadn't spent so much time feeling confused.

All in all, it's a book that could have been so much more but ultimately fails to come together. The highs were high, but the lows were low. In the end, I'm giving it a middle-of-the-road score: 5/10 for average.

***

Credits: Article by d_s_t_e

Reviews by JunieWeather, DI_Gremlin, and d_s_t_e

Special thanks to blue___22 for allowing us to review her book. An interview with her will be coming soon.