Armada x Drive by J. D. Peel was an interesting read. It tells the story of four childhood friends: Armada, Freya, Frien, and Flint. Having reached adulthood they each work on adjusting to their new assigned positions. Armada and Freya have become soldiers who work in sync to fight back against the machina while Flint and Frien are scavengers who collect the broken bits of machinas left behind after a fight. As the war against the Machinas turns more perilous Frien decides to step up and transition to life as a soldier in the typically deadly Asura unit. Each of them faces their own struggles as they work to figure out who they are and who they want to be in a world ravaged by continuous warfare.
This book was pretty good in that it had an intriguing storyline that pit the young heroes against forces both internal and external. Each of the four narrators had a distinct identity and their own individual internal problems which definitely added to the story. The world was interesting and sounds like it would be an intriguing setting but it also lacks a lot of detail and depth. I say that because there is practically no backstory for the world included in the story. There doesn’t even seem to be any minor details sprinkled throughout the text except for maybe one or two. It creates a situation where as the reader we have very little idea of what is going on. The narrators or heroes are fighting this war against the machina but we have more or less no idea why they are fighting, why there is a war and who exactly the machina actually are. The story was still good and I did enjoy reading it but I was also confused a lot because of the lack of context. I really would have liked to see even a little bit more detail and explanation about some of these things. It was good and has a lot of potential even taking that into consideration. I am giving it three out of five stars.
This book is science fiction so it would probably hold the most appeal for readers who prefer that genre but it could also hold appeal for people who enjoy action and adventure stories or coming of age stories as it contains elements of both of those. While there is violence the descriptions are not overly graphic and there is no mature or adult content to be worried about so it could be read and enjoyed by readers potentially as young as fourteen without any problems. I hope you will consider trying it if it sounds interesting. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments if you do. This book was acquired through Reedsy Discovery and you can also find my review there.