About the book:
Olga Gay Worontzoff left the Underworld for her final year of high school anxious for things to return to normal, but fate has other plans.The new hottie at school reads her thoughts but nobody else’s. Her best friend wakes up from his coma acting like a completely different person. Caught in a world that’s a mix of familiar and supernatural, she must confront what she will—or won’t—do to bring him back and stare down her own perceived inadequacies to face a couple of tenacious demons, figurative and literal.
Everything she thought she knew about reality will change as she walks the line between past and present, fear and faith, love and loyalty.
And by the end of a heartbreaking year, she might be forced to realize “normal” in the conventional sense of the word is the one thing she may never achieve.
About the author:
Jamie Ayres writes young adult paranormal love stories by night and teaches young adults as a Language Arts middle school teacher by day. When not at home on her laptop or at school, she can often be found at a local book store grabbing random children and reading to them. So far, she has not been arrested for this. Although she spent her youthful summers around Lake Michigan, she now lives in Florida with her prince charming, two children (sometimes three based on how Mr. Ayres is acting), and a basset hound. She really does have grandmothers named Olga and Gay but unlike her heroine, she's thankfully not named after either one of them. She loves lazy pajama days, the first page of a good book, stupid funny movies, and sharing stories with fantastic people like you. Her books include the first two installments of her trilogy, 18 Things and 18 Truths. Visit her online via Twitter: jamiemayres , Facebook, or at www.jamieayres.com.
My Review:
This is the third installment of the trilogy, and in a matter of full disclosure I haven't read the previous of the series, but since the plot intrigues me, I thought it would work well as a standalone book.
I couldn't have been more correct. This book has a breathtaking suspense and mystery of its own, uncertainty looming large over the characters till the very end.
Beginning with the prologue, that was truly what set me alight on the reading adventure. The prologue is itself a fine piece of work, intriguing and catchy at so many levels, that the prologue compelled me to flip through the rest of the pages. It was intriguing, sentimental, thought-provoking in equal measure.
So, the story begins: Olga has come to see Conner, her childhood friend who has been comatose for a while now. Conner has a new roommate Nate, who by the way is totally hot. HOT. And to top it off, he can read Olga's thoughts. This is creepy. The initial exchanges between Olga and Nate therefore was well, amusing beyond words, there was a friendly banter, heated exchange of harmless sarcasm and pointed words, it gave me all the thrill of reading a YA novel.
(Not to forget, the protagonist works at a bookstore, which is for me a brownie point scored by the nook *wink*)
Nate and Olga eventually work it out, their friendship blossoms into more, and then Conner wakes up.
Here's a twist.And a twist in every scene thereafter. So, Conner is not himself when he wakes up. Olga's childhood friend is replaced by a sadistic moron. For a major part of the book, I was kept guessing by the author to figure out what had gone wrong.
Demon possession was, however the last guess. I liked the way the story progressed hereafter, and I especially liked the end.
A love triangle getting complicated with every passing day, the narration being alternated, everything works out to the advantage of the book.
The writer has a talent, a gift certainly.
As I said, I haven't read the other books in the series, but I didn't need to. even as a standalone, the book never ceases to amaze me as a reader with all its numerous twists and turns. The mystery never seems to end, and it is amusingly stretched. All the characters are confused because of the constant suspense, and they are endearingly etched. The author has done a fabulous job of fiction, keeping me hooked for days.
Book was received as an ARC from Netgalley.
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