Select
Coming from a race of highly-evolved humans, Julia Jaynes has the perfect life. The perfect family. The perfect destiny. But there's something rotten beneath the surface--dangerous secrets her father is keeping; abilities she was never meant to have; and an elite society of people determined to keep their talents hidden and who care nothing for the rest of humanity. So when Julia accidentally disrupts the Jaynes' delicate anonymity, she's banished to the one place meant to make her feel inferior: public high school. Julia's goal is to lay low and blend in. Then she meets him--John Ford, tennis prodigy, all-around good guy. When Julia discovers a knack for reading his mind, and also manipulating his life, school suddenly becomes a temporary escape from the cold grip of her manipulative father. But as Julia's powers over John grow, so do her feelings. For the first time in her life, Julia begins to develop a sense of self, to question her restrictive upbringing and her family prejudices. She must decide: can a perfect love be worth more than a perfect life?
This novel was definitely different than most I’ve become accustomed to in the YA genre because it was more of a melting between Sci Fi and YA which I found intriguing and a nice change of pace.
This is supposed to be the first in a new series and Marit Weisenberg has a unique insight into the human condition that comes through her characters, their psychological development which evolves through the choices they make, and how they deal with life in general.
The only downside that I could see is the romance part between the two main characters. I can seriously see that being an either love it or hate it part of the book’s storyline because it’s classic YA. Considering what a different type of plot overall the author went for it would’ve been nice to see more depth and complexity in this area. I also wish she had tightened up the dialogue some, at times she made the characters sound older through her word choices than they were purported to be.
She has a way of creating characters you will either invest in or hate.
There are some interesting surprises and the conclusion will make you want to read the sequel when it hits. There just seemed to be a little bit of everything in this book which made it compelling enough to read, worthy of my time and curious to see where she’ll go in the second.
Thank you to Netgalley and Charlesbridge Teen for allowing me to review this book.
*synopsis and pic from netgalley.com