Audience/Genre: Young Adult/Paranormal.
Publication: January 9th 2013.
After surviving an assassination attempt, teenager Michael Asher discovers that he is at the center of a worldwide conspiracy reaching higher than any earthly power. A supernatural organization desperately wants him dead. He doesn't know why. Everyone who might have the answers has already been killed.
Tumbling into a web of international secrets, Michael is forced to fight back and dig up the truth. He begins to question how much of the world is truly as people are led to believe it is. Are there things that humanity is not being told? Who is the puppet master? And how far into the maze can he venture before he is lost forever?
Wow, what an adventure this book was! It was full of nonstop action, suspense, loss, sorrow, joy, anger, family, cars and maybe a beginning of a romance?
This book will appeal to guys and girls alike. There were really nice cars that guys would be drooling over. As for me, a car is a car. Michael would have my head if he were real. He was really into them. “That was the terrible truth about nice cars: you might pay a fortune, but you still drive the same dirty roads as everyone else. Funny how roads were the great equalizer.”
The story starts off with what appears to be a seemingly normal teenager sneaking off late at night to meet one of his “clients” in the LA area. He takes his client to a remote area. Then we get the idea that he is more than just a normal teenager since he can see a Glimpse in someone’s eyes and can read them, joy, anger, cheating, terror, etc. That is what he does to make money: he reads their eyes through a picture and tells his client if their wife is cheating or something in an emotion. This night everything goes wrong and there was an attempt to murder him. He barely makes it out, but not after his car is destroyed and the killer is killed by Michael. When the police and his mom come, no one believes him, thinking he just was off recklessly driving in the middle of the night and there was no dead body. From that point on, Michael tries to figure things out but he makes many mistakes and is often a little careless.
He also has dreams of a girl and a guy over and over, ending with their deaths. He also starts noticing that his skin around his right finger where his birthmark is starts to swell and come off and is replaced by a ring that was under his skin. I could go into great detail about all these changes that happens to Michael, but it is more exciting (and gross) to read it yourself. Needless to say, these three people end up together fighting for their lives.
The book almost seems like a cross between a conspiracy theory and science fiction. Everything is powered by the “Guardians”. And. They. Hate. Humans.
Callista is the girl. She is a fighter and seems to care for Michael. Then the guy is Thad. He is Michael’s right hand man. If Michael dies, so will Callista and Thad automatically. This is the third life for them. They can die over and over and come back until they are permanently made human if cut with a certain blade. That is really where Michael is so important. He has hidden the blade in his past life and the other Guardians want it to kill him permanently so they can continue their worldly domination so to speak. Michael just has to find it himself. This is where he has made a stupid mistake and it almost costs him everything.
I love the writing. For me, I love to read and enjoy the book. I am not looking for grammar and all the technical aspects of writing. I just want something that flows, is believable and I got all that in this book. The only thing that bothered me was Michael seemed to accept what he was a little too easily, but that didn’t deter me from loving this book. I started to reread it before I wrote this review and saw things that I overlooked the first time. Dang, if I were Michael, I would have been careless too.
There were questions that still need answering that even Michael doesn’t know and that means I have to wait until the next book comes out. Grrr...
OK, there is so much more. I have left so much out of it, but it is so much better just for you to read it. I was constantly on the edge of my seat worried about what would happen next. It was a book that shows just how much our parents really know about what we do then we realize; that teenagers make mistakes but can rectify them; how much family means; how important it is to fight evil and have the good win out. It is so much more. OK, so I said that a couple of times. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Been a long time since I dropped a line here. For some reason when I read your posts in my Kindle Fire via Google reader, when I try to enter the capcha code I get directed to Amazon. Only with your blog which is real weird!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this book sounds intense and suspenseful. I like stories like this, keeps my brain active and engaged.
I've always wanted to read this book, since Kaleb first announced it... Now with this awesome review, it only highers my expectations.. Too bad it's not out in paperback :/
ReplyDelete