Review: Select

Select by Marit Wiesenberg
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from Net Galley, in exchange for an honest review.

I was delighted when Charlesbridge Teen granted my wish for this book late in the Spring. It's not often that publishers grant wishes. Thus I'm sad that I have not enjoyed their gift. The premise of the book- a race of superhumans (except not human) living among us, teen angst, etc. sounded interesting. I downloaded the book, wasn't grabbed by it, set it aside. I picked it up again this past week because I owe the publisher an review since it publishes in less than two weeks. I decided to try harder. But reader, there was no joy. The most I can say is that I liken it to the Twilight books, with the twist that here, the protagonist, Julia Jaynes, is like our old, wise and all-knowing (think psychic powers) vampire-but-not, and poor sweet John Ford is the smitten one who just can't stay away from hauntingly beautiful Julia and her tricky odd family, who want no part of him.

This book was inordinately frustrating, especially over the first 60 or so pages. We have a race of people who don't want to attract attention, who are all gorgeous, billionaire rich, living in an enclave, traveling in packs, doing superhumans things, who once again, did I mention, don't want to attract attention to themselves? Did I mention that they all look alike? Only maybe two dozen or so. No big deal. Inbreeding usually doesn't work this way, but... hey, it worked for the Targaryens. Until it didn't. As you begin to progress further, you don't really gain much of a feel about the sci-fi aspect of the story because it's basically a teen romance in the guise of a YA sci-fi story, (hence the Twilight analogy although John, thankfully, isn't spineless).

Overall, I found it disappointing, plus it ends in a cliffhangerish kind of way, where we are left wondering exactly where Julia and John will go from here if, in fact, we are really sure we care where they do.

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