10 Things I Loved about Defiance by C.J. Redwine

This book had been on my radar for a while as it looked exactly like the kind of book I normally want to read. Apparently I got it for my Nook and then completely forgot about it because of school and the 800,000,000 other books in my TBR pile. But then someone linked to this interview with C. J. Redwine and I couldn't stop laughing. (no seriously. Click on that link and read it. It's the most hilarious interview I have ever read. Ever. I want to be her best friend.) So I immediately requested Defiance and the sequel Deception from the library and as soon as it came in I started reading. This was when I realized I already owned Defiance, which made me super happy because now this awesomeness is mine! Ahem. So 10 non-spoilery things I loved about this book:

1. Rachel. Talk about your takes-no-prisoners, kick-you-know-what heroine. I love her spunk, her fire, her mad skill with weapons. And that her greatest strength is also her greatest flaw.
2. Logan. Please can I have one? Because seriously. I loved the way he weighed the Worst Case Scenarios in his head almost constantly. I loved the development of his character. I love his "tech-head" personality. And his backstory ;-;
3. Alternating Viewpoints. As someone who has a tendency to write this way myself, I really liked the way Redwine moved back and forth between Rachel and Logan. It added a lot to the story and allowed me to get into both of their heads at important times.
4. The Symmetry. I know this is something that some people might find annoying, but I simply adored the way that both Rachel and Logan would come to the same conclusions or develop the same attitudes basically at the same time. It never felt forced to me, but a natural outgrowth of the situations they were going through.
5. The Dress Scene. Holy cow. When Rachel comes into the room in her Claiming dress and Logan goes completely babblingly inarticulate in his mind I was dying laughing. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
6. Oliver. Oh Oliver. I loved the grandfatherliness of his interactions with Rachel and the comfortable way they were around each other.
7. The Worldbuilding. It was so unique and different and I can't wait to find out how the Cursed One plays into the sequel.
8. The Villain. It's pretty common for dystopian/post-apocalyptic to have a kind of "big bad" that has to be fought, but there was something about the Commander that drove me crazy. I feel like there is so much more to his story and I really hope we get more of it in the second book, but in Defiance he was exactly what he needed to be: cold, cruel, calculating, and mysterious.
9. The Cover. Okay, so this isn't something in the book per se, but I really do love this cover. I'm kind of over the pretty girl in a dress cover, but there is so much depth to this cover with lots of little hints at things in the story. I love the city line across the bottom and that she actually looks like Rachel.
10. There's mo-ore! Yes! There is a second book! I get more Rachel and Logan! I can't wait to read it!