“London, 2218 A.D. Seventeen-year-old Zee is an intern empath. She’s focused on her job, poised for a great career—until one day an attractive patient undoes her hard-earned calm. As an empath, she cannot afford such distractions, but neither can she stay away from David, even when she discovers he’s one of a mysterious alien race. As London comes under attack by anarchist bombings, and as Zee struggles to get a handle on her unusually strong psychic abilities, David starts pulling away. Although Zee’s sure he’s attracted to her, David has secrets he cannot share. But it’s too late for Zee. She’s losing her heart to the gray-eyed alien boy, and she’s determined to follow him—no matter how far it may take her.”
I was entranced by the cover and I'd had it on my to-reads list for a few months..but then….I passed it several times at the Macmillan booth at ALA in Chicago (2013 for future readers reference.) I actually waited an hour in line, at the crazy bull run/zoo on Monday at 12 (where magically, everyone pops up from their crevices and they run down everyone they can to get to the booths that sell their books at noon.)
I waited for an hour, and once I was let in to the booth area, I picked this last beautiful display copy up and went to get a second before checking out. The process sounded peaceful, but what actually happened, was that about 30 people rushed me, crushed me into the booth and left with their precious books without paying for them.
I and three other dignified souls stuck around to express thanks with green paper of monetary value. I’d had my eye on this book for the whole weekend, knowing they only had that display copy. I was overjoyed when I was third in line!
So I made sure that I stuck this one in my plane backpack (which much to my chagrin, I had to take with me every day of ALA to keep track of my medicine and etc.)
The next day, exhausted, I sat on the plane and took this puppy out. I read…and read…and read.
Then I read the rest of it on the drive back home from LAX.
I finished it before we ‘got down the hill’ (it’s what we call the mountain pass that separates LA from my home town.) and I was sorely disappointed.
Yeah, it had lots of precise medical terminology…. But it had no character attachment (oh look, someone died and I don’t care.)
The other thing that drove me crazy? You know the saying “Show, don’t tell”? This book was ALL TELL and no show. Also, the time jumps drove me crazy. You’d go to the next chapter and all of the sudden, it was a month later….What happened in those months and those weeks? Surely she wasn’t put in to a chamber that paused her every thought and emotional turmoil? Yet she was in the same mental state she was before the skip… This definitely contributed to the character detachment.
I just keep waiting for it to get better and it never did. I’m usually such a sci-fi chick! This book held loads of promise, but the way it was written totally put me off. No matter how many unanswered questions there are, I will not be picking up the sequel. Shame. Perhaps it might have been saved if it had a really good (read: ruthless, dictatoresque) content editor.
Don’t pick this book up. There are plenty of others with the same premises that you will enjoy much, much, much better.
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