Review: Identified is officially in my top YA paranormal books of the year
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 10, 2013
A confession: I initially judged this book by it's cover. I took one look at it and thought, "ugh..my chances of loving this are slim." Now, here I sit, silently scolding myself for having jumped to such superficial conclusions. WHO NEEDS COVERS I say!? Identified is officially in my top YA paranormal books of the year. It's SUCH a pity that it's a self-published book, it demands to be picked up by a major publishing house.I've come to notice that there is an extremely fine line between poorly written paranormal fiction, and outstanding paranormal fiction. A pace written too fast in either direction can make or break a novel, a character or situation described just a little too much can have me wanting to put it down. It's such a fine art, crafting non-existent, and far-fetched worlds in such a way that makes it believable to even the skeptical of skeptics. Identified was a novel that someone clearly took the time to care about enough. Faith A. Rice-Mills used a fine tooth comb it seems, ensuring that nothing happened too soon, no one believed everything immediately, and the best part, the "paranormal aspect", was gradual, and had the most satisfying build-up. Identified is written from different perspectives, aside from the ongoing Maya Price story line in present time, there are letters, memories and journal entries from other characters dated in the past and future. I loved the flow, it was perfect without being too perfect-told at a pace that was realistic enough to grasp onto.Maya was outstanding as the main lead. You want to know absolutely everything about her, right away, and then you want it to stop, and let her new fate slowly mold her into something else. I was never bored, or impatient, or frustrated, I was only engaged, every.last.word was something that needed to be told, and I wanted to listen. The characters are plenty, but there will get under your skin, and you will find yourself picking out your favourites very early on. The idea of a "prophecy," and the "chosen one," might be an overplayed route, but when it's done well, it seems as though you're reading about the idea for the very first time. That's what Identified did for me, I was taken to someone I've visited a million times, but yet, it was the first time, and I was completely.blown.away.