Drones by Rob J. Hayes

             Fear: Coursing. Pulsing. Crushing. Fear is a bestseller, not just for me, for all us Drones. It gets the blood pumping, the adrenaline flowing. More than any other emotion; fear makes you feel alive.   

            Emotions are what drive us. Some of us seek them out. Some of us shove them as far away from ourselves as possible. While still others sell every single emotion that they can, good or bad, these people are called Drones, and James Garrick is one of the best. Rob J. Hayes book, Drones, is a short, fast-paced read that's set in the world of black market emotion selling.

          For the last four years, Garrick has been selling his emotions and he specializes in all the ones that keep the adrenaline pumping. But with the political world in an uproar over the legalities involved in harvesting emotions, the underground world that Garrick inhabits starts to become tenser. Before long Garrick finds himself trapped between a corporation that wants emotional harvesting to be legal and a terrorist group that will fight till the end for emotions to be left alone.

          The man taps his skull. "This is sacred. It's the most sacred thing we have. It's what makes us alive. Makes us individuals. Makes us able to choose. People like him, they want to make us slaves."

          There are a lot of interesting themes in this book that I really enjoyed and hadn't experienced before. The idea of harvesting emotions was done really well. You don't lose the memory that those emotions belong to, just the emotion itself, so you're able to look at it from a purely logical point of view. But if you repeatedly have your emotions harvested you can go through strange withdrawals. Making every emotion feel like you're experiencing it for the first time. Guilt, shame, fear, and many more are magnified without the experiences in our past to temper them. Garrick goes through these harvesting withdrawals and has to reassess his life as a Drone constantly throughout the book, which really helped to humanize an otherwise unfeeling character.

         Joy. I'm still feeling joy at the taste of my coffee. I'm in a bad situation. I have no way to rid myself of myself of my emotions and I've got so many of them swimming around with my memories. Panic closes in on my chest. The shakes come back and I feel sweaty all over again. 
        I decide to put my situation out of my mind for now. Or at least I try to...I head into the bathroom and turn on the shower. As hot as it goes...Shame I can't just wash my emotions down the drain.

            I honestly don't have any complaints about this one, it was a fast-paced read with a lot of things I liked. The characters were a little on the selfish side, but it worked really well with the overall story. A person that doesn't feel emotions is going to be more selfish than not, it's only logical to take care of yourself first, it's emotions that push us to do otherwise.

             If you're a fan of sci-fi, adventure/quest type storylines, or adult coming of age stories (meaning our main character is an adult or has to find himself again), this book is definitely worth checking out. There are strong female characters in the story as well, but Rob J Hayes never veers off track into an unnecessary romance which I greatly appreciated. I don't mind romance but only when it adds to the story and Drones had enough going on without it. This book was everything I wanted in a fun summertime read.


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