Author: Jennifer Bosworth
Release Date: May 8th, 2012
Publisher: Macmillan (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux BYR)
Pages: 373
Edition: Hardcover
Cover Judge: Eh, it's alright. Nothing special
Quote Choice: Hehe, I found this line hilarious
Source: For Review
Source: For Review
Goodreads: Link
Mia Price is a lightning addict. She’s survived countless strikes, but her craving to connect to the energy in storms endangers her life and the lives of those around her.
Los Angeles, where lightning rarely strikes, is one of the few places Mia feels safe from her addiction. But when an earthquake devastates the city, her haven is transformed into a minefield of chaos and danger. The beaches become massive tent cities. Downtown is a crumbling wasteland, where a traveling party moves to a different empty building each night, the revelers drawn to the destruction by a force they cannot deny. Two warring cults rise to power, and both see Mia as the key to their opposing doomsday prophecies. They believe she has a connection to the freak electrical storm that caused the quake, and to the far more devastating storm that is yet to come.
Mia wants to trust the enigmatic and alluring Jeremy when he promises to protect her, but she fears he isn’t who he claims to be. In the end, the passion and power that brought them together could be their downfall. When the final disaster strikes, Mia must risk unleashing the full horror of her strength to save the people she loves, or lose everything.
So I was actually really surprised that I liked this book as much as I did. While I didn't fall for it completely, it's addicting!
So basically, Mia's been struck by lightening a lot. It doesn't say exactly how much, but the blurb on the front says "hundreds of times". This, I find a little suspicious. Hundreds of times? Is that even possible? But anyway, there's this huge storm and earthquake that destroys Los Angeles and everyone is freaking out. People are stealing food, fighting for rations, going to mysterious rave parties (always a priority), and best of all: there's a crazy guy who claims God is talking to him. So "Prophet", as he likes to be called, says that the end is coming so you better be on his side or you will like, rot in hell and fire and burn for all eternity. Now, surprisingly, he didn't annoy the crap out of me. He was a crazy villain! He had evil plans, awesome powers, and the way he went about his evil plan even managed to surprise me! The plot wasn't anything outstanding but the book is written in a way that is engaging and paced fast enough that I didn't find myself getting bored halfway through (I'm writing this review at 3:30 in the morning and I started it around 12:30 so yeah)
I really enjoyed Mia as a heroine so round of applause for her! In this crazy world, I liked that she was all about survival and doing what was best for the people she cared about. I'm all for caring about other people but I want my characters to be realistic and if you're in a post-apocalyptic world, your family is who you're going to protect above all others. Which is maybe why I found Parker's antics super annoying instead of endearing because dude: are you trying to get yourself killed? One thing I wish we would've gotten more of was Mia's history with lightening strikes. She calls herself an addict in the beginning and I loved all the moments that featured her and storms because you really get to see how her body just craves it. I thought everything that featured her powers was awesome.
As for side characters, I don't really feel anything for any of them. None of them were developed enough for me to actually care about them since the story was so focused on Mia. Katrina was the most developed side character outside of her family and she was pretty cool but I just had to look her name up in the book after just reading it, so that isn't usually a good sign.
I have mixed feelings about Jeremy even though I was really, really happy with their ending. It's one of those moments where you don't realize you want two people together until it happens and then you're happy about it. But Jeremy is kind of crazy stalker at first, or at least he seems to be to Mia. But I thought that was super weird but after the explanation of his powers and all the plots twists unraveling, I started to like him well enough. I feel like anyone with his power would be a little unstable so I thought his paranoia in the beginning of the book was justified. But at the same time....I didn't know him. I felt like he was just a plot device because you know, YA romance is an awesome thing to have and all that.
Happy Reading!
THOUGHTS ON AN ECARD:
