Review: Very Original Fantasy with Room for Improvement
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 27, 2012
Electrify me... was a surprise. First I am not really into Fantasy unless it runs into the vampire and werewolf genre so I tend to stay away from "alternative realities" but every once in a while I try a book in an unfamiliar genre.  Books like Terry Brooks " Magic Kingdom for Sale- Sold" or Suzanne Collins "Hunger games" have really captivated me and keep me engaged so I keep trying but generally I find myself losing interest in books of this type.  However I took a chance based on the overwhelming positive reviews, and to be honest the negative ones made me curious too. Electrify me, really kept me engaged and was a nice diversion for me.The originality of the story made me round to four stars.  It was nothing I have read before and nothing that I can recall trying to read. There were some unoriginal elements but we don't live in a vacuum so... the way she handled the idea of the four welders and the segregation of their world into four components was very clever.  I liked that even though it's a "quest" book there are not fifty characters to remember and that I can focus my attention on just a few main protagonists and that the names of the characters were not over-the-top bizarre.  I liked too that Kaiya's attitude seemed believable... she is young, so those immature moments were appropriate, but at the same time had an inner strength that seemed very mature. Overall I liked all the characters and I would like to see them continue to mature and grow.Some negatives: I am on the fence with the dialog. Being that the main characters were so young 18- 20 the dialog seemed a bit appropriate, but could have been stronger.  If the target age group for this book is teens (YA), then it is fine and I can suck it up but if the author was shooting for a bit older or more universal then there is room for improvement.  Second... the execution needs work. Plot great!  Delivery...okay. Because there were a lot of good elements to the book I don't want to knock it down too much on execution. There were some glaringly obvious misspellings or words that were missing. However she did have good transition, there were no serious plot holes, and the mistakes were not so egregious that it made the book confusing to read so that was a plus. Since this is a first book I am hoping that throughout the series, the execution will get stronger. To be honest compared to some other self published authors, this was not a bad read and if she continues to improve I think she will have a solid fan base.Overall...If you can get past some of the execution flaws and you like fantasy this is a good one to download.  I liked it and will read the next one.  Good job.