The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder

The Probability of Miracles

Wendy Wunder

Hardcover: 360 pages
Publisher: Razorbill (December 8, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1595143688
ISBN-13: 978-1595143686

Dry, sarcastic, sixteen-year-old Cam Cooper has spent the last seven years in and out hospitals. The last thing she wants to do in the short life she has left is move 1,500 miles away to Promise, Maine - a place known for the miraculous events that occur there. But it's undeniable that strange things happen in Promise: everlasting sunsets; purple dandelions; flamingoes in the frigid Atlantic; an elusive boy named Asher; and finally, a mysterious envelope containing a list of things for Cam to do before she dies. As Cam checks each item off the list, she finally learns to believe - in love, in herself, and even in miracles.

A debut novel from an immensely talented new writer, The Probability of Miracles crackles with wit, romance and humor and will leave readers laughing and crying with each turn of the page.

Review:

The Probability of Miracles was one of those that I developed an appreciation for and had a connection with because the whole cancer issue is close to my heart and ended up liking the book, but...that's where it ends. It was just a decent read. For some odd reason, I felt like I couldn't get a grasp on the main character. She was all over the place for me, and she would constantly contradict herself; it ended up driving me nuts.She'd stick to saying and thinking that miracles and believing and magical wonders are just fantasy, not something she could put her trust in. That was understandable after all she'd been through, but she'd deny that those things could happen so much so that it became obvious she didn't believe herself. A bit too "Thou doth protest too much" type of thing. Then, of course, by the climax she does a whole 180 on herself and I'm left a little dizzy with all the different attitude changes. The only characteristic I could truly admire about Cam is that she does genuinely love her family and try to make it so everyone around her doesn't just think about her as the sick girl. Her makeup and background was one of my favorite character outlines ever; it was so original. This Samoan teenager who's father recently passed, who's mom dances in the Polynesian hotel exhibit in Epcot, likes to work in the hotel's kitchen, who has a terminal diagnosis of cancer and a little Norwegian half-sister, is somebody new to me. And I liked that.

So basically her doctors tell her "Your life is over", and her mom decides it's time to do something a little more drastic, like take the summer off to live somewhere that births miracles daily. There Cam runs into the "catalog kids"--model lookalikes--who become her friends and she starts to slowly take matters into her own hands to make her last few weeks in such a cool beach-side environment to die for. While the plot does take a while to take off because the road trip included making two stops to Cam's best friends in North Carolina and her grandmother in Jersey, there were more and more characters that affected Cam's life exponentially. I did not by any means like Cam's friend, Lily, who was also terminal because the brief instance where her character played a significant part she acted just like Cam offhandedly described, like a spoiled child. I didn't get her appeal whatsoever. 

Asher, the quiet team player, has the pleasure of seeing Cam's crazy family up close since they are staying at his house while he lives in the nearby cottage. Even though Ms. Wunder includes the basics of who Asher is, his personality and appeal besides his good looks is a bit nonexistent. And when Cam was right--as she usually was about everything--about his secret pleasure, I was stunned. It came completely out of left field. She predicted it because she thought she had him figured out but overall, The Probability of Miracles when a little extreme at times. I kept asking myself, "Why take things so far?

The pros that outweighed the cons for me mostly had to do with the crazy shenanigans that Cam did in Maine, and Promise, Maine in general. After reading this book, I would seriously consider convincing my mom for a lengthy road trip just to see the beach, the purple dandelions and flock of flamingos. I loved the author's descriptions of the scenery and her upfront and humorous writing style.

C

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Source: ARC Trade

LiLi

DNF Review and Giveaway: The Faerie Ring by Kiki Hamilton

Hardcover: 352 pages

Publisher: Tor Teen; First Edition (September 27, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0765327228

ISBN-13: 978-0765327222

Debut novelist Kiki Hamilton takes readers from the gritty slums and glittering ballrooms of Victorian London to the beguiling but menacing Otherworld of the Fey in this spellbinding tale of romance, suspense, and danger.

The year is 1871, and Tiki has been making a home for herself and her family of orphans in a deserted hideaway adjoining Charing Cross Station in central London. Their only means of survival is by picking pockets. One December night, Tiki steals a ring, and sets off a chain of events that could lead to all-out war with the Fey. For the ring belongs to Queen Victoria, and it binds the rulers of England and the realm of Faerie to peace. With the ring missing, a rebel group of faeries hopes to break the treaty with dark magic and blood—Tiki’s blood.

Unbeknownst to Tiki, she is being watched—and protected—by Rieker, a fellow thief who suspects she is involved in the disappearance of the ring. Rieker has secrets of his own, and Tiki is not all that she appears to be. Her very existence haunts Prince Leopold, the Queen’s son, who is driven to know more about the mysterious mark that encircles her wrist.
Prince, pauper, and thief—all must work together to secure the treaty…

Did-Not-Finish Review:

Pick-pocketing the streets of Victorian London, Tiki knows who to go after in order to feed the stomachs of her orphan brothers and sisters. Caring for her family in Charing Cross has become her life since the death of her parents and running away from her perverted uncle. In order to keep her family healthy enough she--and Shamus and Fiona--must risk thieving in the flagrant pubs and teeming shops around their home. As her nose leads her astray in a kitchen where a feast is being concocted, Tiki soon finds her in a library of Buckingham Palace, where she proceeds to steal the most invaluable treasure in all of London; the truce that holds the threads of their home together, the Faerie Ring.

Thrust into the world of cobblestones and horse-drawn carriages it is immediately evident the atmosphere of a thief in 1871 London will be carried through in every word, phrase and description of this book. It's when the characters are introduced and when the faeries are thrown in the mix that things got a little "out of wack." I wanted to sympathize with these orphans that take care of each other while living under terrible circumstances. The only time I felt that really happened was whenever little Clara was being taken care by Tiki wholeheartedly. Usually each of the characters all have a little background shown in the beginning of the book so as the story progresses the reader gets a growing sense of who they are as a person. However, in The Faerie Ring all the characters were immediately introduced without so much as a physical depiction of their appearance, except for Rieker who Tiki feels an unquestionable attraction to. I'm getting tired of all these romances that have no basis to explain the connection and develop the relationship between two prominent characters.

When the faeries come in the picture and the truce is actualized, I couldn't help but just put the book down and inwardly complain about the elusiveness of such creatures. I have NOTHING against faeries as a whole, one of my favorite series ever has faeries as the forefront characters, but the author failed to pronounce the importance of these creatures in the plot line. I got up to page 172 before I finally gave up and said, "I don't care what happens with the ring, the faeries or Tiki and Reiker." Honestly, it just didn't matter to me what was going to happen next. Out of the half of the book that I was able to swallow, I only appreciated the setting and the fleeting chapters where Prince Leo and Prince Arthur were talking. That's it, and that is sad. Obviously it wasn't the author's writing style or originality that lacked something, just the plot and characters weren't enough to carry on this tale of "gritty slums and glittering ballrooms" and the Otherworld that held the creatures seeking the reclamation of their city. The suspense and dangerous tone came through loud and clear, but the romance was white noise at best.

Source: Publisher

Giveaway:

In order for you to make up your own opinion of The Faerie Ring I'm giving away a finished copy to one lucky person. Just fill out this FORM and you'll have to be a US resident and wait till October 30th to find out who the winner is...

LiLi

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Reading level: Young Adult

Hardcover: 352 pages

Publisher: HarperCollins (November 15, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0062085484

ISBN-13: 978-0062085481

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days. The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war- and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

In this electrifying debut, Tahereh Mafi presents a world as riveting as The Hunger Games and a superhero story as thrilling as The X-Men. Full of pulse-pounding romance, intoxicating villainy, and high-stakes choices, Shatter Me is a fresh and original dystopian novel—with a paranormal twist—that will leave readers anxiously awaiting its sequel.

Review:

Pros: 

Adam. I loved Adam, he was almost too perfect for Juliette but ultimately fit her character so well. They had the element of history that's subtle but slowly crescendos as you get sucked into their connection. Adam's character in general ameliorated some of the intense-ness of the book, he relieved Shatter Me just by being a reassurance toward Juliette and electrified the pages as their passion grew.

Originality. The pre-meditated dystopian world feel of Shatter Me lent an attractable quality that made the book a nonstop page-turner. I read the book in two whole sittings, I was more than half way done the first time I picked it up to start reading it.

The ending. It was one of those endings that tries to turn the whole book around by giving the reader a whole new perspective of the main character's dilemma in just the last 50 pages, but it did pull it off nicely. It definitely set the tone for the next possible book in the series and permeated an assurance of how the rest of Juliette's story will progress.

Cons:

Warner. Being that he's the son of the leader of The Reestablishment, he's pretty much Adam's polar opposite. Where Adam's sweet, gentle and unfathomably understanding, Warner's psychotically sick, cruel and in denial.

The writing style. I understood how some of the crossed out sentences and repetition in the writing represented and emphasized the main character's "voice," but for the love of me, I couldn't get used to the constant, extreme transitions between scenes. One moment it's action-packed and the MC is flustered, frustrated, trying to fight back....the next second she's calm, and everything's going to be fine. This did drive me a smidge up the wall, but thankfully the other characters were able to pull me back.

The plot. Overall, I did love the relationship between Adam and Juliette, I could appreciate the significance of Warner's villain-ness, but Shatter Me was only specifically centralized around Juliette's one, dominating flaw and The Reestablishment. The Reestablishment isn't fully explained and that's why I'm pretty certain this is going to turn into a series. The constant reminder of destruction of the earth and how The Reestablishment is taking over soon became redundant, especially since I felt like the author was just rephrasing the same background information on how their world came to be that way.

Grade: B-

ARC Source: Borrowed

LiLi

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Hardcover: 450 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing (September 27, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1442421762
ISBN-13: 978-1442421769

Mara Dyer doesn't think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.

There is.

She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love.

She's wrong.

Review:

Do you know what's it's like to have your sense of reality questioned? To face such trauma that after a while, you ask yourself, "Am I dreaming or awake right now?" Honestly, that was the feeling I felt as I was reading The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. It's one of those books that you think is going to be kept hush, hush so everyone in the world can read it and not be spoiled. So everyone in the world can individually have their minds blown without any preparation as to what the contents in this book will do to them. I understand why the synopsis is so brief, they--being publishers--want to draw you in, peak your interest just enough so you could start the book. Then the author takes it from there. Hodkin puts this spell on you as you're reading, just a taste of one to keep you entranced, and as you're sinking deeper into the depth of the pages...you're tested. Your mind is tested and you will ask yourself once you've finished, "Am I dreaming or awake right now?"

First of all, the relationship between Mara and Noah doesn't start as anything unique. Mind you, we have another rich boy, man-whore taking an interest in the new girl and you know they're going to end up together. But my goodness, the scathing remarks these two throw at each other was just wonderful to witness. I felt like I needed to keep a mental scoreboard just to keep up with who was ahead in the insult department.If I wasn't doing this review on an ARC of this book, I'd tell you every single one that stood out for me. They got so entangled into each other, emotionally and mentally, it was a definite thrill to see their connection become stronger and more meaningful as the story went on.  I also had three other favorite characters that I could not get enough of: Daniel, Joseph and Jamie. Out of all three Jamie had to be the most rounded because he had his sense of style, of being that I wasn't able to ignore, an in-your-face personality.

Another element I must mention, is that using my hometown as the setting for this book was absolutely brilliant. I am saying this somewhat subjectively but in the end, I thought it worked best to put a girl who grew up with snow and public schools in the polar opposite of an environment and see how she fared. Hodkin's writing style was what made the book's plot so addicting to read, so spell-binding that I had to lock myself in my room for hours on end till I was finished.

It starts as just another contemporary novel with a tragic twist that ends up turning the protagonist's life upside down. It didn't feel slow-going even though it was only after the first 270 or so pages that I started to get the feeling, no matter how many predictions I made I would never figure this book out until I read it the whole way through. I'd feel like my assumptions were set in stone, like there was no way I wrong about what was going on--because I'm smart like that--and the book would just taunt me with every surprise at every corner. In itself, those first 270 pages could have been the first book of the series and all that followed after it, book 2. Those first pages were well-developed and I would not have hesitated to buy the next book, but you don't know how ecstatic and a little insane I felt reading the last third of the thick book. Overall, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer made me feel crazy because seriously, what a cliffhanger.

Grade: A-

Source: Publisher

Random Nuggets:

--This is probably the only book I'll ever find where a guy had a valid reason for being a man-whore; and for those who have read already, do you think it was valid, too?

--Two questions for those have and haven't read this miraculous novel...what would you do if you could think someone's death and have it come true? And who would win in a guilt-contest, the one who did it or the one who couldn't stop it?

LiLi

Wildefire by Karsten Knight

Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing (July 26, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1442421177
ISBN-13: 978-1442421172

Every flame begins with a spark.

Ashline Wilde is having a rough sophomore year. She’s struggling to find her place as the only Polynesian girl in school, her boyfriend just cheated on her, and now her runaway sister, Eve, has decided to barge back into her life. When Eve’s violent behavior escalates and she does the unthinkable, Ash transfers to a remote private school nestled in California’s redwoods, hoping to put the tragedy behind her. But her fresh start at Blackwood Academy doesn’t go as planned. Just as Ash is beginning to enjoy the perks of her new school—being captain of the tennis team, a steamy romance with a hot, local park ranger—Ash discovers that a group of gods and goddesses have mysteriously enrolled at Blackwood…and she’s one of them. To make matters worse, Eve has resurfaced to haunt Ash, and she’s got some strange abilities of her own. With a war between the gods looming over campus, Ash must master the new fire smoldering within before she clashes with her sister one more time… And when warm and cold fronts collide, there’s guaranteed to be a storm.

Review:

Being adopted during infancy and growing up in a white-washed suburb, Ashline Wilde's Polynesian looks were something of a dark beam in a sea of white light. The only other person who could have understand equally what she was going through decided to up and leave the burbs for a world-view trip around the globe, leaving her little sister behind confused and alone. When Evelyn "Eve" Wilde makes her reappearance, she know nothing better than to terrorize her younger sibling when Ash refuses to do her bidding. After a horrible incident, Ash finds herself across the country in a prep school known as Blackwood Academy that she's beginning to view as the silver lining in a world of chaos, and as a new beginning. It wasn't long until Ash got some answers--and with them more questions--about her elder sister's extraordinary display of power back in Scarsdale, and the group of gods and goddesses that seem to know about their own powers than Ash knows about her own. If she even has any...

The first thing that I was pleasantly surprised to read when I started Wildefire was the brutal way that the author threw you into the story, no mercy, no sugarcoating. From the onset the reader is captivated by the roughness of the main character and introduced into the the confined space she views herself living in. This soon builds up into a well-crafted situation where reason soon flies out the window and total action takes over. This was one of those books where "actions speak louder than words." And I absolutely love those. This doesn't mean that there was minimal dialogue or no explanations of thought processes, not at all. I just mean that the actions done by the primitive characters say more about them than any simple summary of their personality would.

Ashline was my ideal character and perspective I would have chosen to read the book through. She sees more about the people around her, perceives in a way that is easily relatable, and casts them in their own light of judgement. I believe this had to do more with the authors writing style than anything else. The only way I could explain it would be that once you start reading, you don't realize time going by or what page your on. It just keeps you entranced long enough for you to keep reading until you feel exhaustion creeping up on you. Something that really put me inside the book was the unique occurrences of the story being told in second-person. That was a little like the icing on the cake for me.

Another facet that I couldn't ignore was the smooth way Ash's life was built up in the course of time throughout the book. So many things changed, secrets unveiled, people in disguise uncovered. All of it was contributing to the whole of the book and creating a fantastic debut and installment of what I hope will be an everlasting series.

Grade: B+

Source: Simon & Schuster's Galley Grab

LiLi

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Hardcover: 496 pages

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (May 3, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0062024027

ISBN-13: 978-0062024022

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

Debut author Veronica Roth bursts onto the literary scene with the first book in the Divergent series—dystopian thrillers filled with electrifying decisions, heartbreaking betrayals, stunning consequences, and unexpected romance.

*Might Contain Spoilers, Read With Caution*

Review:

There are five factions: Dauntless, Abnegation, Candor, Erudite, and Amity. And the factionless, who live in poverty. As the Choosing Ceremony approaches, sixteen-year old Beatrice Prior must choose which faction will define the rest of her life; but soon, her simulation results change everything. She is told it is dangerous to be Divergent, but she is not told why. When "Tris" finally chooses her faction, the initiation that follows is grueling but she knows that what she's doing is what she was meant for. As she makes friends--and enemies--among the other initiate transfers, Tris grows to love the freedom they represent but she also appreciates the correlation between her old faction and her new one. Challenges and obstacles soon become a daily occurrence and as conflict levels intensify between Abnegation and Erudite, Tris knows there's more scheming being done than the Erudite are exposing in their articles and trash-talk of the Abnegation. Her Divergent status rapidly becomes too hot to handle and she finds help in an unexpected instructor. In this dystopian Chicago, Tris learns to make choices and that when things seem the most hopeless, she is not alone.

I feel like I have to break this book in half because it's the only way I can structure my review. Even though most of you won't understand why I titled the two sections this way, it'll make more sense as I go on.

Before the "Edward incident" (This covers about the first two hundred pages or so.)

Beatrice gave the initial impression of trying to fit into her faction desperately in order not to go against her parents wishes. I understood the constant necessity of her "trying" so insistently. Roth did a great job in explain Beatrice's dilemma and her fight to stay in the world she's always known.

I didn't grasp the author's description of what the Chicago-dystopian world she created looked like. It seems like I kept encountering sentences that were along the lines of "This building..." and "That building...". Sure, there was also a marsh where a lake used to be but I didn't understand her structural outlining of where the many buildings were standing, or how that park connected to that dilapidated fairground. I just couldn't visualize much of the scenery through the main character's eyes. It was only when she focused on specific structures when I got the picture of where she was standing or what she was looking at.

The Choosing Ceremony was very symbolic considering that the "one choice" a sixteen-year old has to make is how they want to spend the rest of their lives. After "Tris" makes her choice, she'd determined not to look back on her decision because she knew the life she now led to live. However, from the start, her choice of faction was predictable and her cowardice attitude tended to get aggravating. I believed the book could only get better as she progressed through her initiation rankings, and her fight to go unnoticed as a Divergent but be in the top ten of the group of all initiates--transfer and in-born alike.

After the "Edward incident" (The last three hundred pages.)

I chose to divide my review into two parts because this "Edward incident" I speak of is like the climax that pivots the ruthlessness of some of the initiates and how things are handled in Tris' new faction.I liked reading how she developed herself into a harder person knowing that there were going to be attempts on her life but not willing to give up and lie down in submission. My favorite scene comes after the "Edward incident", where some of the in-born initiates make Tris feel better with a little zip lining. That might be a spoiler but I felt the most emotion and a bit of adrenaline rush through me when I read that scene.

The conflict that Tris gets caught in between Abnegation and Erudite because she's Divergent was underdeveloped and not though-out as much I'd expected it to be. It was like one night Tris got up and everything was going haywire and then the action continued in a subdued pace till the very last word. Nothing immediately triggered the "war" climax in the ending, it just seemed to automatically happen. There is a thriller aspect to Divergent that is exploited closer to the ending and it tests Tris ultimately when it makes her consider doing things she would have never thought to have done in her old faction, Abnegation.

Last but not least, I have to admit that Tris' relationship with a certain instructor was confusing at times but heart-wrenching when it wanted to be. Confusing because Tris does have intimacy issues and doesn't necessarily know what affection is or what limits to set for herself and others. Heart-wrenching when it wants to be because as the ending came to a pivotal moment when everything was on the line, Roth's writing was deliberately drawing out that moment of selflessness and anticipation, where you're on your toes just wanting everything to work out romantically between the two characters in their worst situation.

I know with a complete certainty that there will be some sort of sequel to Divergent--they really can't just end it there, too cruel--and I am looking forward to it. I hope to see more action taken place and view more of Tris' dystopian world of factions.

Grade: B-

Source: Bought

LiLi

Possess by Gretchen McNeil

Hardcover: 384 pages

Publisher: Balzer + Bray (August 23, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0062060716

ISBN-13: 978-0062060716

Fifteen-year-old Bridget Liu just wants to be left alone: by her mom, by the cute son of a local police sergeant, and by the eerie voices she can suddenly and inexplicably hear. Unfortunately for Bridget, it turns out the voices are demons – and Bridget has the rare ability to banish them back to whatever hell they came from. 

Terrified to tell people about her new power, Bridget confides in a local priest who enlists her help in increasingly dangerous cases of demonic possession. But just as she is starting to come to terms with her new power, Bridget receives a startling message from one of the demons. Now Bridget must unlock the secret to the demons' plan before someone close to her winds up dead – or worse, the human vessel of a demon king.

Review:

After the murder of her father and the weird manifestation of her new exorcist powers, Bridget Liu was not up to dealing with much else; especially the emotional loops some of the people around her were going through. Her tough demeanor created the "I could care less" atmosphere that gave Possess some of its edge. The rest came from the suspense built up from the escalating infestations of demons in Liu's side of San Francisco. However, keeping secrets from the people that care about her--especially a potential boy-toy--soon proves fruitless and the exposure of her more-than-human abilities seems unpreventable. When new occurrences in the case of her dad's murder start sprouting, Bridget doesn't know who to turn to and begins doubting herself and her "banishments".

With my somewhat new fascination in the old biblical good vs. evil, Satan/Demons against God/Angels, I've grown fond of the executions I've seen done in multiple authors' books. In Possess, I was immediately captured by the concept of a young girl being an exorcist. From the very first few chapters I had my initial opinion on the cast of characters and as the timeline and story progressed, they didn't change at all; the characters and my opinions of them. If anything they just escalated in being what they already were, which was predictable and disappointing simultaneously. Bridget's friends--Hector, Brad, and Peter--all had their own essence but were also two-dimensional, meaning they were nicely portrayed but lacking in the creative department. In a terrifying "I know what's going to happen next" kind of way, I knew who were the bad guys from the very beginning. When the background that McNeil wanted to base Bridget's powers came out to light, I didn't necessarily have to wait till the ending for the big unveiling of the bad guy. I already knew who it was. Sad, but true.

A common reoccurrence in the dialogue was the word "Whatever." There's only so many times that the main character can say the same thing before it becomes meaningless. I understand the need for the bad-chick attitude but there are an ample amount of ways that that can be pulled off in a much more believable tone. There's also a tendency where the multiple times the evidence presented to Bridget as to who the mastermind behind everything is, she's a bit slow to pick up the pieces and solve the puzzle. That's a quality I don't like to see in my heroine's because it makes me think that when pertinent information is showed to them--clearly and precisely--they'll stand there and have a plastic look in their eye, going "What?" As I said before, while the concept was enticing to me on a religion-based scale, I could not overlook the abundantly obvious twists and turns of the plot that made this debut bland and lacking. If there is talk of a sequel, I won't hesitate to add it to my wishlist but I won't be at the storefront on release day.

Grade: C+

ARC Source: Publisher.

LiLi