ExtraNormal (Book 1) / Suze Reese

Reviewed by: ?wazithinkin

Genre: Fantasy/ YA Romance/ Sci-Fi

Approximate word count: 90-95,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: YES Paper: YES

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

Suze Reese earned a bachelor's degree, and has worked in the real world in both marketing and journalism. ExtraNormal is her first venture into writing young adult fiction, she and her imaginary friends are very excited about this series. Some of Ms. Reese’s favorite things are toddler hugs and chocolate.

I grabbed this from her website: “I'm told by my pre-teen son that I'm not the Coolest Mom. (… Can you imagine?) Apparently spending your days in pajamas slumped over a computer does not score you points in the Cool Mom department.”

For more, visit Reese’s website.

Description:

“Mira Johns is pretty much like any other teenage girl. Except that she knows how to harness electro-magnetic energy to communicate without words. And she's really, really far from home.

Her assignment as an emissary to Earth sounds fairly simple: blend in, observe, and stay away from the planet’s primitive males. But she quickly learns that nothing about this assignment is as easy as it seems.” 

Appraisal:

I really enjoyed Ms. Reese’s unique, innovative story line and the sci-fi components. I loved how the author worked all the uses of electro-magnetic energy into the alien society. What was most intriguing was how and why the alien civilization had eliminated or controlled certain sociological and environmental elements, which we take for granted, believing they were providing a better quality of life for their species. They infiltrated our society, which was easy to do because they were humanoid, with the intent to aid us along our evolutionary path. I can only hope that perhaps we aid them on a path of de-evolution in the future books of this series.

Mira’s task seemed simple enough; little did anyone realize the depths some leaders are willing to go to advance themselves, not necessarily for the greater good. Mira faced similar decisions putting herself, her family, and her friends at risk as she unravels and tries to piece together the mystery she finds herself in the midst of. I found the story a little tedious in the middle as Mira struggles with all the lies she has to tell repeatedly. However, I was greatly entertained with her conversations with Geery, her best friend back home, through thought streams. Everett was truly frightening with his abilities of mind control and Jesse, provided the perfect flawed romantic lead. He is a mystery at first, but as his character unfolds, you will be blown away. I thought the story ended on a nice note and sets up the next adventure quite well.

FYI:

I think this is going to be a great series, probably for older teens because of the angst that was dealt with. The romantic element was YA appropriate and heartwarming.

Format/Typo Issues:

I found no significant editing errors or issues.

Rating: **** Four stars