Tuesday 29 October 2013

Imagine by Christiane Shoenhair

Title: Imagine
Series: Young Creator Trilogy Book 1
Author: Christiane Sheonhair & Liam McEvilly
Genre: Teen, Fantasy Fiction
Source: Free Copy for Review
Pages: 211 pages
Rating: 2.5 Starts

Avaliable Here:

Blurb (via Amazon):
First: There was The Event, The Event that changed absolutely everything.
Then: There was nothing but confusion, heartbreak and pain
Now: All that’s left to do is save the world from darkness and protect her heart from splintering into a million pieces.

Trish is a regular seventeen year old girl, her life is rather boring and anything but out of the ordinary. Home schooled and living alone, with only her mother for company.
That is until The Event, the very next day she's shipped off to a boarding school in California, with no explanation as to why she is completely abandoned by the one person she thought would always be there for her. Trish finds herself angry, hurt and confused. Just as it seems that Trish starts leading a better life making friends and falling in love for the first time, everything changes.
Trish finds out what and who she really is, which causes her not to know who to trust. Thrown into one crazy situation after another Trish is fighting for survival and her heart.
Throw in Keagan the mysterious guy she is falling for and Sam who is there for her when she needs a shoulder to cry on , preparing for an epic battle between darkness and light, a prophecy that stems from The Old World, not knowing who she can and cannot trust and you get to go on a journey.

One you could never IMAGINE!

First: There was The Event, The Event that changed absolutely everything.
Then: There was nothing but confusion, heartbreak and pain
Now: All that’s left to do is save the world from darkness and protect her heart from splintering into a million pieces.

Trish is a regular seventeen year old girl, her life is rather boring and anything but out of the ordinary. Home schooled and living alone, with only her mother for company.
That is until The Event, the very next day she's shipped off to a boarding school in California, with no explanation as to why she is completely abandoned by the one person she thought would always be there for her. Trish finds herself angry, hurt and confused. Just as it seems that Trish starts leading a better life making friends and falling in love for the first time, everything changes.
Trish finds out what and who she really is, which causes her not to know who to trust. Thrown into one crazy situation after another Trish is fighting for survival and her heart.
Throw in Keagan the mysterious guy she is falling for and Sam who is there for her when she needs a shoulder to cry on , preparing for an epic battle between darkness and light, a prophecy that stems from The Old World, not knowing who she can and cannot trust and you get to go on a journey.

One you could never IMAGINE!

My Review:
When authors contact me to read their books for a review, I always feel a little overwhelmed. But, I hope that these people know that I will always be 100% honest in my opinion of their work.

Saying that, the reason that this book received a less-than-average score was mainly due to the fact that it was very unrealistic. Okay, yes I know it's a fantasy fiction book, so obviously it's not going to be very realistic in that sense, but I'm talking more about the interactions between characters and sometimes even the characters themselves. I had a hard time believing that a lot of things that happen throughout the book, *SPOILER ALERT* especially during the time that Trish was held captive on the island, but extending after that as well. To point out one point in particular, I didn't understand why Trish was upset when Porche told her that she and Keagan were engaged. Although Trish and Keagan have a thing at the beginning of the book, I don't think their relationship went on long enough to develop deep enough feelings to have someone consistently abuse you for days and still be able to care deeply for them. Especially for a teenager, because, as a teenager I can attest to how fickle we younger generations can be. But that is just an example.

There were a few other minor problems with the book: grammatical issues (mostly with regards to semicolons, but really, who CAN use those properly 100% of the time?), a lot of minor contradictions in conversation and the story, and a tendency to over describe/ explaine simple situations.

Now don't get me wrong, there was so much that I liked in the story as well. The plot line was really interesting and has a lot of potential. It needed some fine tuning, but all the ground work was laid out for you. There was a lot of creativity in the book as well. I absolutely LOVED how she titled the chapters. I also loved the whole concept of the Creators conjuring what they imagine... I wish!! But, what I really valued was the dystopian island Young Creators are brought to to control. I would have liked to see Trish there longer and see how that affected her character, and how it would pertain to her relationships with those around her. I found that whole the beginning was a little slow, the pace picks up about a quarter if the way in and gets way easier to manage.

The last point I want to point out is, as a mythology buff- especially in Greek mythology- the whole Artemis' descendants thing didn't make a whole lot of sense. Artemis is a virgin goddess, and by no means did she have children. I think this was the only point that I was actually upset about, everything else was mostly nit picky things. 

Overall, it was a great story and had great potential, but I felt that it was more of a first draft rather than a final product. With a little fine tuning and a lot more revising, I believe that this story could really be great.  


Book Butterfly

No comments:

Post a Comment