Review: The Diviners

The Diviners
The Diviners, Book 1

Author: Libba Bray
Pages: 592
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Source: Nabbed at BEA

Description from Goodreads:
Evie O'Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City--and she is pos-i-toot-ly thrilled. New York is the city of speakeasies, shopping, and movie palaces! Soon enough, Evie is running with glamorous Ziegfield girls and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is Evie has to live with her Uncle Will, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult--also known as "The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies." When a rash of occult-based murders comes to light, Evie and her uncle are right in the thick of the investigation. And through it all, Evie has a secret: a mysterious power that could help catch the killer--if he doesn't catch her first.

First Sentence: "In the town house at a fashionable address on Manhattan's Upper East Side, every lamp blazes."

Review:

Woohoo, I finally finished The Diviners. This thrills me both because it's insanely original and good, and because it's so incredibly long and took me forever. Partially, this was because it was my secondary book, but still...oof. Libba Bray has firmly cemented herself in my mind as an Awesome Author, both for her hilarious personality and her talented writing. Though I didn't like A Great and Terrible Beauty when I first read it ages ago, I loved Beauty Queens and now this one. Libba Bray is one of those authors with the remarkable ability to do something entirely new and astounding every time.

Though The Diviners was pretty slow-going for me, I really did pos-i-tute-ly love it. The storytelling style Bray uses appealed to me entirely. She tells the story in third person, but with a sort of magical realism flair to it, sometimes following a character and sometimes trailing the wind. This fit the story like a glove, and really set up the precise tone needed to pull this tale off.

On the downside, I wasn't entirely sold on Bray's use of multiple perspectives. I love them usually, whether third or first person, but it felt forced here. Basically, most of the book was Evie, with a smattering of chapters from Memphis' perspective, and then random bits of chapters following other characters/things. For the most part, the narration that didn't follow Evie found my mind wandering off course just a bit. I just feel like Memphis didn't do enough to justify his having such a large chunk of narrative relative to his importance.

The paranormal plot line, though clearly not yet fully-fledged, still opening up like a bud to become a bloom, delighted me too. Diviners have abilities, sort of like X-Men, which you know is totally one of my favorite things. Evie can see a bit of the past when touching objects. Memphis can heal. The powers are different for each individual and all fascinating. As I said, this was not as big a part of the book as you might expect yet, but will clearly be more central to the next installment.

Another aspect that Libba Bray gets just right is the creep factor. If you're someone who's scared by books, she will no doubt have you cowering into your blankets. Thankfully, I'm not bothered by horror in books (though I can't stomach it in the slightest in films), so it didn't scare me. I could still admire, however, her ability to create suspense and an eerie scene. I suspect that the story is told the way that it is precisely so we can pop over to the victims' points of view.

On top of that, I loved Evie. She starts out as this shallow, selfish girl, who I definitely still loved, but grows into this even more loveable girl throughout. I say that, but her core doesn't really change at all. She lets more of her good qualities shine through, but she's not magically a good girl or something; she still loves to party, to drink, to manipulate people and to be the center of attention. Evie is straight up hilarious, and I like that, much as she's a party girl, she really doesn't seem all that bothered about boys. Romance doesn't seem to matter to her all that much, except in the matchmaking sense, determined to help her straight-laced friend Mabel land her crush.

I never quite felt the same liking for any of the other characters that I did for Evie. Jericho and Will I like, but I don't know enough about them to be super invested. Memphis really does seem like a marvelously nice guy, but he just bored me, and I'm really creeped out by pretty much every other character in his story line. My least favorite character, though, by far was Sam. Intellectually, I know he's sort of the more messed-up, male version of Evie, but, for whatever reason, I just cannot stand him. Maybe I just can't get over the fact that he stole from Evie when he first met or how freaking cocky he is.

While The Diviners was not a perfect read, I still declare myself awash in admiration for Libba Bray's talent. This book is so unlike anything else I've read and the writing is superb. For those with a bit of patience, you will not want to miss this one, as it is remarkable.

Rating: 4/5

Favorite Quote:

"'I thought you went to the library,' Uncle Will said.
   Evie cut her eyes at Will, who didn't look up from his book. 'Why do you think I'm so exhausted? If you'd like to know anything at all about this city in 1876, please raise your hand. No show of hands? Pos-i-tute-ly shocking.' Evie bunched a pillow into a corner of the settee and rested her face against it. 'There is a hideous invention called the Dewey Decimal System. And you have to look up your topic in books and newspapers. Pages upon pages upon pages . . . .
   Uncle Will frowned. 'Didn't they teach you how to go about research in that school of yours?''
   'No, but I can recite 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' while making martinis.'
   'I weep for the future.'  
'There's where the martinis come in.'"

Review + Giveaway: The White Forest

The White Forest

Author: Adam McOmber
Pages: 320
Publisher: Touchstone
Publication Date: September 11, 2012
Source: Touchstone for blog tour

Description from Goodreads:
Young Jane Silverlake lives with her father at a crumbling family estate on the edge of Hampstead Heath. Jane has a secret—an unexplainable gift that allows her to see the souls of manmade objects—and this talent isolates her from the outside world. Her greatest joy is wandering the wild heath with her neighbors, Madeline and Nathan. But as the friends come of age, their idyll is shattered by the feelings both girls develop for Nathan, and by Nathan’s interest in a cult led by Ariston Day, a charismatic mystic popular with London's elite. Day encourages his followers to explore dream manipulation, with the goal of discovering a new virtual reality, a place he calls the Empyrean.

A year later, Nathan has vanished, and the famed Inspector Vidocq arrives in London to untangle the events that led up to Nathan’s disappearance. As a sinister truth emerges, Jane realizes she must discover the origins of her talent and use it to find Nathan herself, before it’s too late.

First Sentence: "When Nathan Ashe disappeared from the ruined streets of Southwark, I couldn't help but think the horror was, at least in part, my own design."

Review:
The White Forest was not what I was expecting at all. Perhaps I should have been, but I tend not to read blurbs at all or not closely, because they sometimes contain spoilers. Anyway, I thought this was going to be a gorgeous novel of historical fiction, and it certainly starts out that way. Then it changes into fantasy horror, so be prepared for that.

The writing of The White Forest is lush, dark and gothic. I very much appreciate McOmber's style and use of language, even when the story went down paths I wasn't entirely thrilled about. Though the book does not have much action, the story moves along at a nice steady pace, jumping from the present to the past, as we unravel the mystery of what happened to Nathan Ashe.

The opening chapters focus on a friendship, that of Jane, Maddy and Nathan. The three of them formed an unlikely bond, one frowned upon by the rest of society. Two girls and a boy should not be so close, others felt, suspecting something unsavory. Jane, Maddy and Nathan could not care less about the opinions of others. Maddy and Nathan are both beautiful, meant perhaps for better things and company. Jane, so plain and boring and unworldly, feels so lucky every day to be important to them. She doesn't want anything to change between them ever.

Changes, of course, cannot be avoided as they grow older. Both Maddy and Jane struggle with an attraction to Nathan, and the jealousy of not knowing where his affections lie. Maddy especially felt jealous, hating Nathan's interest in Jane's supernatural powers. Nathan, on the other hand, has been tempted away from them by a cult led by the mysterious Ariston Day. Maddy desperately wants him out of the cult, justifiably, but to no avail. Then he disappears.

Jane's power initially seemed to me a sort of curiosity, but it's not; it is, in fact, the whole point, which I felt stupid for not figuring out sooner. Jane can see and her the souls of objects, this whole other world the rest of us have no sense of. By touching another person, she can let them see this as well, in a process she calls transference. Carrying flowers helps minimize the effect, so Jane stays flower-bedecked.

Her power, which she deems a curse, is of great interest to others, who ascribe many disparate meanings to it. Many, including Maddy, think this is a sign of witchery, that Jane has been touched by the devil. Others believe Jane and her powers can lead the way to paradise. Jane's mother, strange herself, says that Jane is the daughter of a tree. This basic concept of Jane's power wowed me. The cult, convinced of Jane's divinity, too, was a horrifyingly creepy and awesome element.

Unfortunately, as the book became completely fantasy, the story got a bit weird for me, likely especially so because I was not expecting the book to go there. The way everything turned out just seemed overly strange to me, especially the white apes and everything at the end. I love fantasy, but this world just did not ring out to me. This part reminded me strongly of H.G. Wells or H.P. Lovecraft, and their classic fantasy and horror. If you like their stories, I suspect you will enjoy this aspect much more than I did. I, however, found it too crazy, and read on in disbelief, no longer especially interested in the characters, though still entertained by the pretty writing.

Personally, I would have preferred if the book stayed historical fiction. However, if you like dark, creepy fantasy, The White Forest just might rock your socks off.

Rating: 3.5/5

Favorite Quote: "After Nathan was gone, I went to my bed and lay facedown in my goose pillows, thinking of Maddy. She was as fierce a creature as I'd ever known, and I respected her greatly. She'd once said she and I were both outlaws—not unlike those famous villains of the American West that we read about from time to time in the Herald. 'Society has abandoned us, Jane, and so we'll make out own society here on Hampstead Heath. We don't need the flittering fools of London or their parties.'"

Giveaway: Thanks to Shane of Itching for Books for hosting this tour and to Touchstone for providing review copies and offering this giveaway, which is tour-wide.

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In the End - Amy MacDonald

The Age of Miracles

Author: Karen Thompson Walker
Pages: 288
Publisher: Random House
Source: Random House via NetGalley

Description from Goodreads:
“It still amazes me how little we really knew. . . Maybe everything that happened to me and my family had nothing at all to do with the slowing. It’s possible, I guess. But I doubt it. I doubt it very much.”

Luminous, haunting, unforgettable, The Age of Miracles is a stunning fiction debut by a superb new writer, a story about coming of age during extraordinary times, about people going on with their lives in an era of profound uncertainty.

On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, 11-year-old Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life—the fissures in her parents’ marriage, the loss of old friends, the hopeful anguish of first love, the bizarre behavior of her grandfather who, convinced of a government conspiracy, spends his days obsessively cataloging his possessions. As Julia adjusts to the new normal, the slowing inexorably continues.

With spare, graceful prose and the emotional wisdom of a born storyteller, Karen Thompson Walker has created a singular narrator in Julia, a resilient and insightful young girl, and a moving portrait of family life set against the backdrop of an utterly altered world.

First Sentence: "We didn't notice right away."

Review:
I actually read this over a month ago on the way home from Pittsburgh. Though I generally love long drives, I really wasn't in the mood to do any driving. My dad did end up doing all of the driving, partially because I provided entertainment. After finishing the last few chapters of the book I'd been reading, I let my parents choose from the other books I had along, and then I read the book out loud to them. I finished The Age of Miracles on the drive back to Atlanta.

Reading aloud a book is rather a different reading experience than any other. It's part audiobook, but much more focused than that. It also draws my attention to aspects of the writing I might not have appreciated had I read the book silently. Obviously, I didn't listen to the audiobook, but I suspect it could be really good. My parents enjoyed listening to the book as much as I enjoyed reading it (despite the sore throat).

What reading the book aloud allowed me to fully appreciate was the lovely cadence of Walker's writing. Her book read very smoothly and naturally, but with a somewhat poetic sort of cadence to it. The largely short sentences with some tendency toward repetition might have been a detractor had I been readin the book to myself, but, out loud, I found them simply lovely.

The one issue I had with the writing, one that I feel vaguely nitpicky for even mentioning, was with the way Walker did dialogue. 95% of the time if there was dialogue, it was followed by he said or she said. Most of the other 5% were he/she asked. I get that coming up with other words can be tricky, and this may have been a stylistic decision, but I found it really boring and repetitive to read aloud. Again, this is something I may not have picked up on had I read this the usual way, since I tend to gloss over those.

Much as I enjoyed this book and was seriously fascinated by the concept and consequences of the Earth's slowing rotation, I had some definite suspension of disbelief issues while I was reading this. The thing that gave me the most trouble was accepting that nobody noticed the expansion of the days until they were substantially longer. Not knowing even a theory as to why this might happen was also troublesome, considering that it happened to suddenly and so drastically. I could have accepted a gradual slow down without explanation, but would expect something cataclysmic to result in such a dramatic, quick change.

Moving past that, though, I found, as I always do, the vision of society trying to cope utterly captivating. I did have some more disbelief issues in that things mostly seemed to be going TOO well. Still, it was interesting to see how non-dystopian this was, with the governments actually doing their best to keep the crisis as manageable as possible. The Age of Miracles is very firmly post-apocalyptic. Even if I didn't always understand or agree with where Walker took things, I loved how widespread the implications of the slowing were.

What made this book such a high-rated read for me, though, along with the writing was Walker's glaringly honest description of middle school. Julia is a sixth grader much like I was, abandoned by a two-faced friend to face the awkwardness of sixth grade alone. She suffers from acute loneliness, desperate for connection but unknowingly sending out signals that send people away. She reminded me so much of past self and I just ached for her. Putting aside all of the post-apocalyptic stuff, The Age of Miracles captured what middle school felt like better than anything I've ever read.

Well done, too, is the family drama aspect. As the world falls apart, so does Julia's family. Her parents snipe constantly, her father escaping to work and her mother descending into a disease caused by the slowing. Julia herself alternates between trying to mediate and just wanting to wash her hands of it. The family's relationships, in good moments and bad, felt very legitimate to me, very real.

Though not a perfect book, I really, really liked The Age of Miracles. Walker's idea was new and fresh, her writing lyrical, and her characters well-drawn. I anticipate her next novel highly!

Favorite Quote: "When I think now of that moment in the kitchen, an almost unbelievable thought comes to my mind: There was a time when those two people—that man hunched at the table and that woman shouuting in a bathrobe—were young. The proof was in the pictures that hung on the living room walls, a pretty girl and a bookish guy, a studio apartment in a crumbling Hollywood building overlooking a courtyard and a kidney-shaped pool. This was the mythical period before I was born, when my mother was not a mother and was instead an actress who might make it someday, any day, maybe soon, a serious girl with a lovely face. How much sweeter life would be if it all happened in reverse, if, after decades of disappointments, you finally arrived at an age when you had conceded nothing, when everything was possible."

"Always thinking 'bout tomorrow
Before today is even through
Always thinking 'bout the future
What on earth will happen to you

There's so much more that I could be
So many places that I'll never see
So many lives that I'll never meet
I'll just dream until we get there in the end

And if the world stops spinning
Would I start moving home
And if the world stopped dreaming
Would I stop believing in it all"

Remember: Every comment on a post during Dystopian August is an entry to win one of fourteen dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels IF you've filled out the form from this post.

Wild Wild West - Will Smith

Dead Reckoning

Author: Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edghill
Pages: 324
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Source: Bloomsbury via NetGalley

Description from Goodreads:
Jett is a girl disguised as a boy, living as a gambler in the old West as she searches for her long-lost brother. Honoria Gibbons is a smart, self-sufficient young woman who also happens to be a fabulous inventor. Both young women travel the prairie alone – until they are brought together by a zombie invasion! As Jett and Honoria investigate, they soon learn that these zombies aren’t rising from the dead of their own accord … but who would want an undead army? And why? This gunslinging, hair-raising, zombie western mashup is perfect for fans of Cowboys vs. Aliens and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies..

First Sentence: "Jett Gallatin expected trouble in Alsop, Texas—but not zombies"

Review:
If Cherie Priest's Boneshaker and Wild, Wild West had a lovechild, it would be Dead Reckoning. The book is filled with zombie mayhem from beginning to end in a wild west, steampunk setting. Add in a girl dressed as a boy, some crazy scientists, and religious cult, and you've got the makings for one action-packed ride.

The zombies are pretty creepy, although the addition of the cult is what REALLY makes the whole thing terrifying. Again, the zombies aren't the focal point. They are a bit distinct from the zombies I've encountered in other novels. These are a bit shambly and slow, but they are crazy strong, and almost impossible to dispatch. These zombies, like the origin of the world 'zombie,' are based on voodoo legend. One thing I'm bothered by is the use of the word zombie. It seems that its usage did originate in roughly that time period, but it still felt weird to hear people talking about the Confederacy and zombies in one breath.

The creepy factor they definitely got down, as well as the western bits and the steampunkery with the vehicle and the science. I would have liked to see a bit more humor in it, though. Nothing in the book really made me laugh, and this is a premise that would definitely have been improved with humor. I mean, any gender bender ought to have some amount of humor, because there are so many confusions that can happen.

I read this book in just a couple of hours, one sitting. It's a really fun read, but there wasn't too much more to it for me. Character development is seriously lacking. Both Jett and Gibbons are seriously hardcore women, and, of course, I liked that. However, they were still lacking in any real depth. And they were the best-developed characters. White Fox completely lacks personality. Seriously. He was like so boring. I was also a little confused about why his character was a white man raised by an Indian tribe, rather than just being native. There could have been diversity here, but there isn't.

The other thing about this, which makes me suspect they may be planning to make this a series, is that there are a lot of dropped plot threads. Jett never finds her brother. Despite some comments about how attractive the characters are and some foreshadowing of romance, nothing ever comes close to happening in that department. It just didn't really feel finished to me.

Still, if you want a mindless (zombie pun) read with lots of zombie action that you can dispatch quickly, Dead Reckoning will definitely fulfill your needs. I don't recommend this to anyone looking for a dark, witty, impressively-written novel; this is for fun only.

Rating: 2.5/5

Favorite Quote: "Gibbons stifled a tiny sigh of exasperation at hearing the familiar sentiment. In her experience, there was no obstacle that did not fall before the power of the mind. Far be it from her to point out yet again that the majority of the lady pioneers here in the West spent the greater part of their lives either alone while their husbands were out hunting or trapping or tilling the soil—or performing those tasks themselves when one of the perils White Fox had listed carried the husbands off. Both men and women had lecture Gibbons on the unsuitability of her chosen vocation, and when she marshaled her arguments, said, ‘But that’s different!’ (How it was different, no one was ever quite able to explain to her satisfaction.)"

"Wild Wild West, Jim West, desperado, rough rider
No you don't want nada
None of this, gun in this, brotha runnin this,
Buffalo soldier, look it's like I told ya"

Twisted Nerve - Kill Bill Soundtrack

Believers

Author: Naoki Yamamoto
Volumes: 2
Publisher: This manga is not currently licensed in English
Source: Scanlation on Mangafox

Description from Mangafox:
Three members of a modern-day Japanese cult who are taking part in a "deserted island" program in which they must work together to purify and refine their spiritual essence and transform themselves into more advanced human beings. Of course, life doesn't usually work that way.

Review:
Honestly, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to review this. Since it's my policy to review everything, I considered reading all but the last chapter and then quitting, but that's lame, so here goes. I chose to give this brief series a try because the description up there sounded fascinating. Creepy cult? I am in. The story started out boring and creepy, then it got weird and creepy, which is where it stayed.

What the Mangafox description leaves out (but the Goodreads description I didn't check until later doesn't) is that this cult is built pretty much solely around renunciation of sexual desires. So, here I am, reading along and suddenly BAM fairly graphic sex every couple pages. Seriously. The first few chapters were just these three people on an island, two men and one woman, apparently following the directive of some leader. They are reliant upon deliveries for food and orders, but they don't necessarily come in a timely fashion, so they worry a bit about food.

Mostly what they do is discuss their dreams every day. This manga is trying to say something about dreams and sex, but I really have no clue what. If they have bad, impure dreams, the punishment is to be buried chest deep in the sand and left there for a while. This is all that had really happened. Then some drunkards land their boat on the island, wreak havoc and try to rape the woman. The girl runs off and the men shoot the interlopers. The 'chairman' of the island stays to cleanup the mess and the other guy goes to check on the woman, who confesses to having been turned on by her attempted rape. She is shamed. To make her feel better, he's all 'oh hey, check out my erection,' so that she'll know she's not the only dirty person around. Obviously, she feels guilty for giving him impure thoughts, so she has to give him a blow job.

And that's basically what this manga is, though it expands to include the chairman, who has all sorts of kinky purification rituals in mind. Why did I keep reading? Well, for one thing, it was really short. If there had been any more volumes of this, I wouldn't have bothered. I also really wanted to learn more about the cult. Why do they sit with their feet pressed together? How did this group get started? Why are they all here? How do they have control over this island? What's the world like outside the island? Well, thankfully, that stuff does get explained, but, seriously, I didn't get it. I feel like the manga would have benefited from a bit more balance between to the crazy and the conclusion that explained how all of this came about.

I really don't know what to make of this at all. On Goodreads, it actually has a really high rating, so I suppose there aren't too many people like me stumbling across it with no clue what it's about. This is my third seriously unfortunate manga in a row. I hope I read a good one soon. This might be up your alley if you like reading creepy, mind-bending things with lots of sex.

Rating: 2/5

Lightning Rod - Guster

Struck

Author: Jennifer Bosworth
Pages: 382
ARC Acquired from: Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR via NetGalley

Description from Goodreads:
Mia Price is a lightning addict. She's survived countless strikes, but her craving to connect to the energy in storms endangers her life and the lives of those around her.

Los Angeles, where lightning rarely strikes, is one of the few places Mia feels safe from her addiction. But when an earthquake devastates the city, her haven is transformed into a minefield of chaos and danger. The beaches become massive tent cities. Downtown is a crumbling wasteland, where a traveling party moves to a different empty building each night, the revelers drawn to the destruction by a force they cannot deny. Two warring cults rise to power, and both see Mia as the key to their opposing doomsday prophecies. They believe she has a connection to the freak electrical storm that caused the quake, and to the far more devastating storm that is yet to come.

Mia wants to trust the enigmatic and alluring Jeremy when he promises to protect her, but she fears he isn't who he claims to be. In the end, the passion and power that brought them together could be their downfall. When the final disaster strikes, Mia must risk unleashing the full horror of her strength to save the people she loves, or lose everything.

First Sentence: "When you've been struck by lightning as many tmes as I have, you start to expect the worst pretty much all the time."

Review:
I really, really wanted to love this book. Absolutely everything about it sounded so completely awesome to me: girl with magical powers from lightning, earthquakes, dystopia, cults. The plot sounded so intriguing and unique, and right up my fantastical alley. Unfortunately, the book really just did not work for me, from the beginning to the end.

From the very beginning, I sensed that I was going to have some serious trouble with this particular read. Very early on, Mia, who suffers from insomnia, manages to fall asleep. She wakes up in the middle of the night to see a boy standing over her bed holding a knife. He drops the knife, picks it up and leaves, all while she watches. Then SHE GOES BACK TO SLEEP. Not what I would do but she thought it was a nightmare, so okay. In the morning when she wakes up, she notices a cut in the floor right where the dream dropped a knife AND SHE STILL THINKS IT WAS A NIGHTMARE. This may be a small point, but I really could not get past it, and it's a perfect example of why I could not relate to Mia.

Normally, I really identify with main characters that are outcasts, because I know what that feels like. Maybe if there had been a bit more background about Mia and her family I would feel more attached. As it is, I was just frustrated by her inability to put things together. Realizing she was NOT dreaming takes her forever, even though it was INCREDIBLY obvious to me (and I really don't think that's a spoiler, since there was a cut in the freaking floor).

Another example is that, as all of the paranormal business gets explained to her, they keep mentioning a quality she has in excess but other people have somewhat. I swear it takes her like a hundred pages to figure out where that power came from, when I totally thought we all knew from the beginning and it hadn't been stated explicitly because it was so obvious no one needed to. About a hundred pages later, she has another revelation that was clearly the plot of the novel. The main character should not be so incredibly shocked to learn things on page 300 that I knew on page 25.

None of the other characters felt especially real to me, either. The one we get closest to is Jeremy, who is described as looking "like a European underwear model," except for the Clark Kent glasses he wears to hide his "beautifully tortured blue eyes." When I read those bits, I rolled my eyes so hard it hurt. Why can't Jeremy just be an attractive, real person? Why does he have to look like an underwear model, specifically European? What are beautifully tortured eyes? None of the other characters really seemed to have much depth to me, though, to be fair, there's a reason Mia's mom is catatonic through to much of it.

Then there are the cults. They're fascinating and terrifying, yes, but I feel like I don't really know anything about them. The Prophet's crew reminds me of the church in True Blood. They're crazy, and they don't require too much of a mental leap to imagine, but I'm having real trouble with the Seekers. It would be one thing if they formed to combat the crazies in white, but they came from some prophecy from yesteryear. How did they know? And how did they maintain interest for so long?

That's one thing I wonder about. The powers are seriously cool, and fortune-telling certainly is one of them. What I wonder, though, is where the heck these powers came from. Am I supposed to see them as coincidental? Is there some sort of god granting the powers? I just don't know.

Something else I would really like to know: WHAT'S HAPPENING IN NOT L.A.? L. A has a devestating earthquake, thousands die, and no one comes to help? The rest of the country just leaves the city to die of starvation and to be taken over by a crazy cult? I don't have much faith in humanity particularly, but I'm pretty sure their would be support from the government, like food and aid workers, unless there was drama going down elsewhere too. There is no mention of this, though. What's going on?

As you can see, I was left with more questions than anything. The concept here is great. Bosworth's writing definitely shows promise, and she definitely had a style to her syntax. I also really appreciate that she did not shy away from touchy subjects. Though this came out as a resounding meh for me, I am definitely not writing Bosworth off completely. There was enough good here, in the concept and writing, to give her another chance. I hope to find her next book a bit more well-planned.

Seriously guys, do not judge this one off of me alone, because I know other folks really enjoyed it. Just because I wasn't impressed, doesn't mean you won't be blown away by it. For example, check out this review from Good Books and Good Wine; she really enjoyed the book, even parts I didn't.

Rating: 2.5/5

Favorite Quote: "A piece of advice: if you want to remain in control of a doomsday cult, don't give a date for the end of the world unless you're really, really sure it's going to happen. Being wrong tends to undermine your authority."

"Standing on a building
I am a lightning rod
And all these clouds are so familiar
Descending from the mountain tops
The gods are threatening
But I will return an honest soldier

Home...

Steady on this high-rise
Like every lightning rod
And all these clouds are boiling over
Swimming in adrenaline
The sky is caving in
But I will remain the honest soldier"