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Friday, August 28, 2015

Review: Transparent

Title Transparent (Transparent 1)
By Natalie Whipple
Genre YA Supernatural
Pages 350

Synopsis
Even in a world full of people with abilities, Fiona's is unique. She's invisible.  As a leader of a crime syndicate with the power to sway woman to do as he pleases, Fiona's father has been forcing her to do his dirty work for years. But when he tells Fiona she's going to have to kill for him it's too much. Fiona and her mother go on the run. Trying to hide in a small town, Fiona begins making friends for the first time in her life. But even being invisible isn't enough to hide forever.

First Sentence It's a good thing summers in Vegas are so hot, considering how often I walk the streets naked.


What it has going for it
I'm a huge fan of X-Men so any book with characters with super powers appeals to me right away. That doesn't mean I'll automatically like the book, though. Transparent, thankfully, I ended up loving. In fact, after I finished it, I woke up the next morning and was heartbroken that I couldn't keep reading the story. I missed it. The book starts out showing us just how dangerous Fiona's life is and while, after her escape things calm down and become more character driven, that danger still lurks throughout the story. I'm not usually a character girl. I'm all about plot, but the characters in this one were great. Each with their own fleshed out personalities, with the exception of Graham, but more about that later. The slow build romance just tugged at my inner swoony girl. I loved it! I think it was probably the best part of the story. Which says something, because I'm not the biggest fan of romance. All in all, this story just makes you care. I'll miss the characters. Thank goodness there's a sequel.

What's lacking
The writing...it's not perfect. This is obviously Whipple's first book. There's a LOT of telling not showing and that underlying "yeah right" feeling going on sometimes. And Graham just drove me crazy. Not because he was the "villain" but because he was just so cliche. Saturday morning cartoon cliche. All that was so easily overlooked, though. Something about this book just works and makes you love it.

Yea or Nay?
Yes. Exciting, fun and romantic I'd highly recommend it.

10 comments:

  1. Oh, I really enjoyed this one too! I'm an X-Men fan as well, so I had to read it. Definitely agree the romance was really cute, and not too sappy, which I appreciated. I hope you enjoy the sequel when you get to it; for me, it was just as enjoyable, and I'm actually hoping we'll get a third book (though sadly there's no news as to if we will at the moment). Great review!

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    1. I can't wait to read the sequel. Wasn't this one great?

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  2. Woo, am so going to read this! Love anything with super powers!

    Ohh that reminds me, did you hear that they've cast Channing Tatum as Gambit in the next X-Men movie? Not sure how I'm feeling about that!

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    1. What?! No! I don't think that's going to work but we'll see.

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  3. I've heard some pretty... not nice things about the writing, which is why I haven't ready it, even though it sounds cool. And that first line is killer! Maybe I will give it a try since you loved it so much!

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    1. It's her first novel. If you can ignore the writing and just enjoy the story you'll like it.

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  4. I'm excited to read this one. It's been out for so long and I still haven't read it, lol. Once of these days. I'm glad you liked it despite what you thought didn't work.

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  5. I like the idea behind the book- but not sure if I'll add it to my pile... might have to be a library read. ;)

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