Review: Defiance Rising
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 27, 2013
This book started off well but wow... issues with grammar, word choice, knowing who is talking and a totally nonsensical and unbelievable plot ruined it for me.*Possible Spoilers*This is speculative YA fiction.  I will not have my daughter read this due to poor grammar and poor plotting.In some ways this reminds me of a superhero comic book gone awry.The female protagonist lives in the wilderness surrounding a city that had been destroyed in alien warfare.  The aliens are Bad.  Then suddenly our protagonist gets zapped and suddenly has all kinds of super powers.  Her friends do, too.She meets a city dweller, brings him back to the woods and romance flares up- but every one in her little enclave of remaining humans expect her to be with the guy who has been by her side and best friend since always.Suddenly, with the onset of her super powers, she begins hearing communications with a rebel alien.  Then her group finds out that they are a sort of 'sleeper' aliens that were put on  Earth before the full-scale invasion took place and were raised as humans.  It is also revealed that her aforementioned best friend is her alien-destined soul mate.  Apparently, pre-arranged hook-ups are genetically encoded in this alien race.Now this rag tag bunch is going to rebel against a whole city taken over by superior alien forces.  They take some time to train with their new powers and she spends alot of that time vacillating between her city-dweller love interest and her alien-fated soulmate.They finally decide to attack the aliens in the city and the protagonists becomes the almighty and powerful being when the alien commander messes with her love interests. *Boom*!  Apparently, she is the subject of a great alien prophecy and must face her destiny(I think that was repeated a few dozen times)(okay, maybe hyperbole but, yeah, too much, too heavy-handed).  Ultimately there were so many things going on that the writer spent alot of time straight out explaining things to the reader, rather than letting the important information filter down through the actions and experience of the characters.I don't want to slam on the author but I felt the writing was very self-indulgent and juvenille and not in good YA fiction kinda way.All that said, it was entertaining and not SO bad that I couldn't get past the first few chapters(which I thought were actually pretty decent).  I just got the feeling that the author didn't take her time to fully express the story she had in her head which left me going, "huh? sometimes.  The whole tidy, convenience of a small group of tenagers overthrowing an alien force that has managed to decimate the human population gave me angst about suspending disbelief.Some people may love the whole butt-kicking, teenage girl protagonist, which I can understand.  I had a really hard time with how the protagonist agonized over her love interests- uh, if someone really is your predetermined soul mate, wouldn't you love them?  And if you fell in love with someone else, wouldn't that make you question if your soul mate was really your soul mate?Grammar and the use of incorrectly spelled words also distracted from the pros of this book.  I think it would be a decent teen read so long as they can buy the storyline and don't notice the grammatical and spelling issues.  I actually felt like I was reading something where the plot was not planned and structured- and that it was written by a teenager.  I would expect more from a YA author, these days.If you enjoy speculative, dystopian/fantasy/supernatural crossover books with a little romance- tryThe Immortal Rules (Blood of Eden),Die for Me (Revenants), orEnclave.  These are all series/trilogies and even though they are definitely YA novels, I enjoyed them and they were entertaining, well-written enough that it did not subtract from the story.I do think this author has potential and I would like to see more of her writing- just not like this.*************************Updated: I am raising my review to four stars.  I still have reservations about the plot but the author took her time to comment on her frustrations regarding the editing, spelling and grammar.  In all my time reviewing here and elsewhere(even professionally), I have never seen an author take time and due diligence to respond in a straightforward manner and open manner.  As errors are being corrected in the text, I believe this will vastly improve the reader's experience.I look forward to reading the rest of the trilogy given that typographical/semantical errors are addressed.  It was an enjoyable read; I was very distracted by errors but was engaged well enough to read it straight through.  With the massive amount of content now available electronically and everyman/woman being able to publish outside of the traditional publishing conduit which did ensure some accountability, finding a book that I can get past the second or third chapter has become a chore.  This was not such a book.  While there is other crossover fiction with more tenable plot lines, I do believe this author is worth a read.