Mecha invasion of outer space!!

I wanted to get my husband involved with my reading somehow. All the activities I did pre-husband are very feminine and isolated to one person. All of his pre-wife activities are Eagle Scout, uber athlete related. It has been one heck of time finding some middle ground. As I am a super nerd, video games have become one outlet. He especially loves the mech games such as Armored Core. In an attempt to get him reading, I searched my wonderful friend Netgalley for books about mechs. 

ATLAS by Isaac Hooke

I found ATLAS as a wonderful compromise of my husband's interest with my desire for him to more actively read with me. What I didn't expect was my reading it and absolute enjoyment of it.

I should express at the beginning of this review that I have worked with former soldiers on a daily basis for the last four years. Military jargon is far from foreign to me at this point, and I have every occupation of the Navy and Marine Corps practically memorized. I must admit that this in depth knowledge is probably what increased my interest in this novel. Isaac doesn't leave the non-military reader in the dark, though. All the acronyms and slang are fully explained to keep the reader on track without feeling like a constant lesson is in place.

The giant mechanical military suits of kickassitude probably also helped make the story so awesome. Though, I was highly surprised how long it took them to make their entrance into the story considering they are on the cover and a large part of the book hook. I didn't have the highest hopes going into this story for character development and overall qualities that make books good to me. Was I surprised! The lead characters development through basic and onto advanced training; their interactions with one another; the emotional depth of connectivity to each one of them--wow! I closed this book with complete satisfaction of what I had just read.

The ending was absolutely wonderful despite it's cliche science fiction sign off. It really made me interested to find the follow up story. As the third book is getting ready to launch next week, Netgalley allowed reviewers to catch up on the series. I really am glad to have been a part of that. I finally found strong men to wash out the overdose of femininity flooding the shelves right now.