Review: Such an intriguing idea, but I just couldn't connect...
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 01 16, 2014
I could not get into this book. The cover and the blurb lured me in, enchanting me and promising to be right up my alley in the Fiction I Will Love category, but ultimately this book fell short for me. I struggled to finish it even though I was interested in this new view of astral projection (Taking your BODY with you, so it's more like...an alternate universe? Taking food with you? Changing your face (masking), adjusting your age, doing everything with such purpose? COOL!). The concept was really great, but the writing just didn't hook me.The characters and their relationships were not explained very well so I couldn't quite understand why there was such much dislike on Michael's behalf towards Stu. Other than knowing they were the High Five gang (which really was adorable and I liked it - a glimpse of the camaraderie they had as children, exploring the astral universe together), I also didn't understand how it was stressed repeatedly that Stu was only 19 in this world, our world, but in the astral world was much older. It was said like that a few times hinting at this kind of mystery and history, but without ever explaining that. The astral projection is treated as common place yet secretive, and Michael's mother is reserved and hiding major secrets, which I found frustrating. The intricacies of this travel that they are doing, the inner workings and how it happens, needed to be explained to the reader in more detail. It felt like I was jumping in the middle of a soap opera, tossed a bunch of pieces of information, and expected to paste it all together myself. Even when the characters were reminiscing about their pasts adventures, etc., it didn't really solidify them or give them a strong backstory to glue them together for me. I also found their different personalities in the astral plane, due to adjusted age, muddled my understanding of their relationships further.I wish I had been able to connect to this story and characters as I really loved the idea. The idea is complex and different and beautiful. But it just was not executed in a way that involved me as a reader and I could not get into it. :(My copy was provided by as a review opportunity to read and give my honest review. Thank you very much for the opportunity!