Review: Enjoyable and Quick but a Bit All Over the Place
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 12, 2014
This was not necessarily a bad book, but by no means is it a favorite (or close to) for the year. However, it did make me want to read more from this author. I did like it, it just seemed to suffer a bit of an identity crisis for me to love it completely. The characters were alright, but the story line was a bit all over the place. The included comics were a cool idea and I did like those as well.Sasha has this skill where she can make people say what they're thinking when she speaks. As a result she ends up in the FBI and is recruited by the CIA. She has an issue with being accepted for who she is as well as making people proud. That trait was probably the main reason I wasn't a huge fan of Sasha. She was very needy, and while extremely competent, she took the need for approval a bit far.I enjoyed Vivian the most. She was really funny and completely honest even without Sasha speaking. She knew what she wanted and what she believed and didn't care what others thought about it. The guys were alright. There wasn't anything super swoony there, but they were pretty cool. Sasha's handler, Porter was strange. I never could get a handle on him and what his intentions were. Half the time I thought he was a bad guy and the other half I forgot he was there.The biggest concern in my opinion was the plot. It's advertised as a thriller. I don't really get why. Granted there are a few spy like movements but there isn't much more than that. There wasn't a whole lot of mystery. This is why I think it suffers an identity crisis. In my mind, it comes off more as a coming of age story where Sasha tries to find herself than a thriller where there is a major mystery afoot. The political angle was also a bit strange and, to be honest, I didn't understand at all.Despite these concerns, I did enjoy it and it was a pretty quick read. The drawings that were preceding each chapter were cool. Even though they didn't entirely relate to the current story, they seemed to provide some background information about Sasha as well as what she was thinking. I also enjoyed Sasha's view of superheroes. Gotta love comic book heroes! I still plan on reading more by this author and already picked up one of her other books!