Review: Riveting character play with enough creepiness to give it bite
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 19, 2013
I liked this book a lot. First of all, most of the characters are all very vivid and unique, from their speaking patterns to their preferred ways of approaching problems. By the end of the novel, I had formed some pretty significant emotional attachments to some of them, even having a strong reaction to the quasi-romantic triangle (I'm Team Seth all the way). This is rather inevitable, given the book is much more about emotional journeys and character development than the bits of action dragging us along.The plotline, while containing enough common elements to make it safe and understandable, also has some fresh elements. In short, after the death of her abusive father, 17-year-old Itzel Loveguard stumbles across her older brother and his friend performing seeming magic tricks. When they tell her they have powers, she reveals she, too, has been hiding her own abilities to write realities into being. Thus begins a journey into discovering their common heritage as well as mastery of their newfound powers. Given the creepy verbiage from their father's suicide note ("Don't let them get my children") and Itzy's dreams of something big and bad coming, they seem to have a deadline. Along the way, Itzy discovers, and of course falls for, a young man with amazing, cataclysmic powers.I love this author's voice. She approaches tired topics and descriptions from such fresh angles. I remember really liking something she said about Itzy, the main character's, alcoholic mother: something about how she'd fractured many years ago and the alcohol was the glue keeping her from shattering. She also has a lovely way with metaphors and slips rather seamlessly from awkward teenage conversations to lush descriptions.This is not to say the novel is perfect. It includes some plot inconsistencies that seem awkwardly contrived to give the story a more traditional flow. For example, in spite of earlier celebrations of Itzy's "overnight" mastery of her powers, when she's kidnapped by a jealous girlfriend (a two-dimensional character ripped straight from a stock library of female-characters-we-need-to-hate), she waits helplessly until her friends and ultimately her new boyfriend can Come to Her Rescue(tm). Itzy, whose powers are lauded as potentially the greatest of them all, spends her captive time forgiving the jealous ex. Yeah.Also, the action scenes are often a bit jumbled and somewhat confusing. The author writes descriptions so beautifully and delves with such incision into the inner workings of her characters; it makes me wonder if she doesn't find the action scenes necessary evils in her character play.Last of all, I know some people don't mind it, but I have a difficult time dealing with head hopping. While Itzy is our usual narrator, some scenes hop from one POV to another. Also within scenes, the descriptions move from deep POV (we're inside a character's head, looking out through her eyes) to third person. It's hugely distracting, at least for me.In spite of the drawbacks, this is a riveting read. I strongly urge readers to buy it and prepare to become emotionally entangled with Itzy and her crew.