I usually say that I read a lot of YA, but I’m not really inclined to write it. And that’s . . . mostly true. Several years ago, I had a YA idea about a girl who suddenly discovers she can read people’s minds, but she’s misdiagnosed as schizophrenic. One of the doctors recognizes her true abilities and “rescues” her from the mental hospital, bringing her into a support group for people like her. She uses her abilities to help recruit other gifted people—until she discovers this seemingly benign support group is a front for telepathic assassins.
Sounds pretty dang cool, huh? As much as I liked the idea, my efforts to write it were pretty darn lame. (I did like this one little snippet I wrote for the Kissing Day Blogfest 4 years ago). It didn’t get written—but if I had written it, I could only hope it would be as cool as Kiersten White’s book about telepathy and teenagers programmed as assassins, Mind Games.
For obvious reasons, I’m pretty sure I’m not going back to that idea now.
Fia and Annie are as close as two sisters can be. They look out for each other. Protect each other. And most importantly, they keep each other’s secrets, even the most dangerous ones: Annie is blind, but can see visions of the future; Fia was born with flawless intuition—her first impulse is always exactly right. When the sisters are offered a place at an elite boarding school, Fia realizes that something is wrong . . . but she doesn’t grasp just how wrong. The Keane Institute is no ordinary school, and Fia is soon used for everything from picking stocks to planting bombs. If she tries to refuse, they threaten her with Annie’s life. Now Fia’s falling in love with a boy who has dark secrets of his own. And with his help, she’s ready to fight back. They stole her past. They control her present. But she won’t let them take her future.
Obviously I’d been interested in this book since I first heard about it on Kiersten’s blog, but I (lamely) waited until HarperTeen put the ebook on a crazy good sale—at $1.99 I really couldn’t say no.
This book sucked me in and dragged me under the surface along with the characters. I loved the non-linear structure, the twists and turns, the unreliable narrators (and everyone else!). The mythology of this slightly paranormal world tastes so real that you’re not sure it isn’t real.
Occasionally I had a hard time telling who was narrating (of course, the chapters were labeled with the sister’s name, but I leapt straight into the story, so it didn’t really register all the time), but for me that was a very minor problem.
However, the biggest problem I had was the villains. They were obviously manipulating Fia and Annie horribly, but their objectives and the rest of their means were shadowy at best. I wanted a better sense of the threat Keane posed to not just the sisters, but the rest of the world, to really get him as a villain. I’m hoping that will be all cleared up in the sequel, Perfect Lies, due out in February. (Six months away!)
What are you reading?
