Other reviews on Goodreads are not the most complimentary, so I was skeptical going into this. As with many other books (and other things in life), your expectations going in can shape your opinion in the end. My previous experience with the world of Shadowrun was limited to being an avid player of FASA Studio's 2007 Xbox360/PC online first-person shooter. I found the video game version of Shadowrun to be intriguing - while it was light on story, I really liked the idea of a tale taking place in a near-future world in which battles are waged using high-tech weaponry alongside "magic" of the kind more often seen in fantasy. Oh, and the inclusion of what Shadowrun calls "metahumans", e.g. Trolls, Orcs, Dwarves and Elves sounded like fun as well. I found out that this videogame was based off of a tabletop RPG game, and that there were also several novels penned in this universe.

That being said, as I already knew a little bit about the world of Shadowrun, and I was interested in experiencing it in literary form, the critical side of my personality went easy on this. Yeah, the title "Born to Run" is cheesy, IMO. The cover art is horrendous (good thing I don't judge books by their covers). There isn't much that could be said to be "deep" about the story either. That's ok though. Sometimes I want to eat a well-prepared meal of medium rare-prime rib, and other times I want a cheap, greasy hamburger. This is the cheap, greasy hamburger of my literary interests. The cheap, greasy hamburger is horrible food, but sometimes you just want a cheap greasy hamburger, and it hits the spot just right.

The story takes place in 2053, following a 20-ish girl named Kellan Colt as she arrives in Seattle, having travelled from her hometown of Kansas City. In a nutshell, she is a novice "Shadowrunner" - pretty much a mercenary for hire. Most of the book deals with her meeting others in the trade in the Seattle area and learning about some of her own magical ability, completing her first two "runs" in the process. The story is very much plot/action-driven, and there's not much depth to any of the characters in the 288 pages, but I did enjoy this, and I might even pick up the next book in the series - especially since it is written by the same author and follows the same protagonist. ( )