Review: The anti-Twilight (Yay for common sense!)
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 10, 2014
SUMMARYAllison Noble, a typical high school girl, discovers that three male classmates are behaving suspiciously strange, and comes to suspect that they are hiding a dangerous secret. Struggling to balance schoolwork while helping her poor single mother pay the bills, Allison and her friend Delaney are caught up in a web of deceit by these three classmates, and eventually discover that the three boys have superpowers. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg, as Allison soon begins to manifest an unusual ability of her own…THE GOOD…1) The anti-TwilightThis story has a lot in common, superficially, with the popular book series by Stephanie Meyer. It features a female protagonist who goes to high school with a trio of attractive young men who have superpowers. But, despite this, the book is actually quite the opposite. This is a book where the female lead uses things like... logic. For example, when the three attractive young men start making special efforts to hang out with her and her friend... she realizes that something is up, and starts becoming suspicious. Rather than losing her head and falling for the pretty guy in front of her, Our Heroine manages to keep her wits and remains distrustful of these three weirdoes who are practically stalking her. She does not thrill over the possibility of any romance, and we definitely got the impression that if she woke to find one of these young men was watching her sleep in her bedroom, she would scream and call the cops. (Just like every sane, intelligent young woman should.)2) Excellent beginningThe book opens with Allison and her friend Delaney sneaking into their school in an effort to frame one of Delaney’s enemies (high school trope ahoy!). They then discover that three male classmates are also there, and something weird is going on. From there, the story flips the “paranormal romance” genre on its head: these guys were doing something unusual in a bad place, ergo they might be dangerous (and they certainly sound such), so naturally the female protagonist is suspicious of them and doesn’t trust them. Yay for common sense!3) Fun protagonistThe story is told in third person limited from Allison’s POV. We can’t tell you what a relief it was to read the story of a relatively intelligent teenage girl. She is young and makes stupid mistakes, but compared to some of her classmates she is far above her age. This is understandable given her home situation (single mother, poverty), which lends her an extra level of maturity above her peers. She’s not perfect by any means–sometimes we found ourselves yelling, “Just say ‘no’! Stick up for yourself, girl!”–but overall we found her an intensely likeable character. For that matter, even though they’re only seen from Allison’s limited perspective, all of the characters appear to be fully fleshed-out individuals, and it was great to see how different they all were. We certainly enjoyed all of the interpersonal play between them.4) Witty conversationSometimes there are authors who just know how to make their characters’ conversations have a little extra spice, a little “zing” in their words, and yes, this novel is written by one such author. The lines in these characters’ mouths were amusing and clever, and made the read feel very much like a television show, with witty repartee between the leads. It gave a definite sense of chemistry among all these characters.5) Flowing writingThis novel stands at about 250 pages, but it flows fast, in no small part thanks to the author’s writing style. It takes little to no effort to read and understand what is happening, which was great. Although there wasn’t a large cast of characters (perhaps 8 or so who need be remembered), they often gathered together in the same scene, which could have been confusing if not for the flowing writing. We never felt as though there were too many people on the page, and never had trouble differentiating one character from another.THE BAD…1) High school drama + clichésNow, some people will like this aspect of the book. We don’t particularly enjoy these tropes, but we also know that a great many people like stories about young people going to school. But, even though this book has high school clichés in spades, the author found ways to make these clichés bearable. First, the protagonist a specific voice, and it was interesting just to read the situations from Allison’s eyes, even if the situations themselves were not particularly interesting on their own. Second, the writing style and especially the witty conversations made this all fly past, so we could practically soar through the boring parts and go right to the important plot elements. Third, the mystery of who these three boys were and what they were doing or intending to do kept us on our toes. For these reasons and more, we can just shrug and say, “So it involves high school… so what?” Which, believe us, is not something we would usually say.2) Lack of description and sceneryThe characters all are fairly well fleshed out, especially the protagonist, and their interplay is great. The description of space outside the characters’ heads and voices? Not so much. Literally, “not so much”: there were typically only markers (“they sat in the living room,” “we were at so-and-so’s house,” “she went into the classroom”), with no description of anything within these locations. How big was the living room? What color was the couch? We can’t even tell you the hair color of the protagonist. Of course, this is easily made up by the reader’s imagination, but it would have been nice to have a little bit more of a framework for our imagination to work with.THE BIZARRE…1) Telepathy mistaken for ventriloquismIn this book, when a telepath’s ability is discovered, the character doing the discovering decides that it must be a case of ventriloquism, because “obviously” telepathy isn’t real. We thought this little twist was a cool and interesting take on this power, a fun way for the character to “explain away” the discovery of the ability, and in this way kept the mystery going for a bit longer. For that matter, we loved the descriptions of this book’s telepathy, it was so intriguing (and occasionally hilarious).2) Ability theftLater in the story, we’re introduced to the concept of villains who can steal people’s superpowers. We thought this was a cool twist and liked the idea that there were these two communities–superpowers and superpower-thieves–who worked in balance with each other. We thought this was an interesting explanation for why both of these communities remained hidden from the eyes of normal people.…AND THE VERDICT:This book is GOOD.As we said above, the writing is fast-paced, and its flaws are of the sort that they only appear intermittently; by the time a reader becomes annoyed with them, the flaws are already gone as the plot pushes ahead. What really makes this story shine is its characterization and emphasis on personal interactions. Each of the characters felt unique and real, and we really enjoyed the mystery of figuring out what was happening. In short, this book knows what it is, and it’s not difficult to categorize or understand. It is a fun, attention-keeping read, and we very much look forward to seeing where this story goes in the future.