Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Publisher: - (Indie)
Publication: Jan. 15, 2013
Series: The Dark Origins
Pages: 229

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Rating:

Synopsis:

Ember Reed is a fifteen-year-old shape-shifter, a creature with the ability to transform into any animal, despite it’s shape or size. At least, she should be able to; Ember can’t quite change her entire form, only bits and pieces. This has earned her the nickname “sucky spook” at the Sagefall Recreation Center, a place where supernatural beings go for training.

Living the life of an outcast, Ember pretends to be content with only having her cousin Jayd as a friend and keeping her nose buried in fictional stories. But when she goes to the bookstore downtown and finds a girl going through her first Shift, Ember realizes that she might have the chance to make a friend.

Ember also realizes that this girl may be in trouble, because the most powerful people of her community have been starting to disappear. After she witnesses the kidnapping of her classmate she decides to do whatever she can to save her new friend, but while trying to keep this girl off the kidnappers radar she seems to have fallen right onto it.

My thoughts:

Ember Reed is a fifteen year-old spook, a Shifter. By definition at least, as she has a hard time with shifting even parts of her. However, soon her abilities starting to evolve and become something they wouldn't be supposed to according to everybody. It proves to be right, though, when everything gets messed up and dangerous.

It had caught my eyes a long time ago for its colorfulness and abundance in different types of preternatural creatures and it didn't have me disappointed. There were witches and psychics, vampires and shifters and elves and many many others mentioned. They were all really detailed, had many curious abilities and traits.

I also adored the plot. It was full of twists and mysteries that wouldn't let my attention languish. Albeit, I didn't always like how these twists ended up to be. The whole book was peppered with the thought that "They are not who they appear to be," which I found a bit annoying.

On the other hand, as much as I doted on the plot was I not content with the characters. All of them seemed childish to me, even the older ones. The only one, who I suppose, was meant to really be childish is Ember whom I found a little annoying but altogether I liked her. She was just fifteen and a bit sophomoric, that's all. Anyways, she was kind and nice to even her bullies and wasn't chicken at all.

In conclusion, I did like it very much, yet I think the characters could have been a little bit better and also I was annoyed by the unpleasant way it turned out to be in the end in terms of characters.

Rating Breakdown:

Cover: 5/5
Characters: 3/5
Plot: 4.5/5
Style/Writing: 4/5
Word building: 5/5
Originality: 4/5

About the author:

"Grew up in southern Ontario and I have been writing ever since I can remember (although when I was a kid I would draw my stories...badly). I love photography and WoW, and have far too many half-used notebooks, and not enough room to shelve the number of books I own!
My books are available on Smashwords, B&N, Kobo, Apple iBooks, Diesel eBooks, Amazon and Scribd."

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Continue the series!

Goodreads

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