College student, Natalie Vega, struggles in her quest to learn how she can have a normal life, which includes her boyfriend Ryan, and also help the world that has been experiencing the effects of global warming. While her supernatural powers are unknown and are a secret to most in the world, an evil business tycoon learns of her superhero abilities and has other plans for Natalie and his empire.… his empire.
Recommended age: 16 and up
***Young Adult/New Adult cross over***
more
I’m so bad… I promised I’d get this post up for the author on the twelfth. I just finished the book… at nearly five a.m. Aren’t I bad?
To, start, I’m not big on what I call “lah” moments. You know, the moments in movies where a couple are so sickeningly sweet, ooey gooey in love, and they’re all, “I love you,” and, “No, I love you more,” and everyone else in the room wants to gag. Okay, maybe that’s my perception, but that’s pretty much how this book starts, picking up where the first book left off. Just… not my thing.
This is also the glue of the first half of the book too, so it was a little slow for me until it really got into the meat of things… because I’m a meat and potatoes kind of gal, after all. Doporto is very much a romance author first.
I love the interplay between Lise and Natalie. I can’t help but smile. It’s so clear that they’re good friends, and it’s so hard on Natalie trying to hide what’s going on with her. Their interactions simultaneously put me at ease because of the easy familiarity between the two, and put me on edge because of the secret Natalie is hiding from her roommate and friend.
I frequently see Natalie as foolish and naive. At times, I question her skills as a scientist because she overlooks events she shouldn’t, and doesn’t question things and people she should. Frankly, if I’d been the main character, things wouldn’t have gone down the way they did. Granted, I’m from New Jersey. We believe anything that isn’t nailed down deserves to get stolen. We believe the worst in people and, when I first moved to North Carolina, thought there was something wrong with everybody because they were waving at us… like maybe they were serial killers or something. Me? I would have probably locked myself in my room, not let anyone see what I could do, never would have trusted anyone. So, yeah, I couldn’t help feeling like she was a bit naive for trusting people when my brain was swimming with government-issued SUVs swarming in or corporate conspiracies. Yeah, I totally thought this was going to be a corporate conspiracy type of thing. In my head, there was some big bad mad scientist that had experimented on her. I had so convinced myself that’s what had happened that I was a little let down when I learned the truth.
The second half of the book definitely picked up. It was a little slow reading for me at first, but once I hit the halfway point, even a headache and upset stomach didn’t slow me down (and good God, did I feel like crap…). You couldn’t help becoming absorbed in the characters’ plight, wondering how they’d escape, everyone alive and mostly unharmed.
I was a little miffed, let down, when the big bad guy’s evil plans had to do with cannabis/marajuana plants. More specifically, allowing them to adapt better to weather conditions. I felt like cannabis didn’t hold quite the umph as a illegal enterprise, partly because of it’s controversiality with regard to whether it should be illegal in the first place (after all, the only reason it is illegal is because of a pharmaceutical conspiracy long ago to increase sales of cough medicine, and it is the only drug — including alcohol and cigarettes — which hasn’t had a single death attributed to it in the thousands of years of recorded history of its use), and images of stoners kept popping into my head — things like Cheech & Chong “driving” their van with smoke billowing out the windows. Add to that, cannabis is about the most resilient plant known to man. Probably the only plants more drought tolerant live in deserts, and yet that was one of the big bad guy’s complaints. Cannabis can practically grow anywhere. Now, if it had been heavy rains damaging young plants, that would make sense, or an early frost. But drought?
One of my favorite things about these books was the mystery of it, trying to figure out what’s really going on. I spent most of the two books trying to figure out what was happening to her, how she came to be the way she was, what was triggering the change, and a plethora of other things. And best of all? It was generally a surprise. I mean, sometimes my imagination got away with me and I imagined something far more complex and outrageous than she did, but it was always a surprise, good or bad. I liked that, because I’m rarely truly surprised by books, movies or TV shows anymore. This one kept me guessing, and as someone who finds Sherlock Holmes “elementary,” I guess that’s saying something.
Format: ARC PDF copy
Source: Author