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Series: The Hunted #1
Publication date: December 18th, 2012
Pages: 304
Synopsis:
Because of what you are, the Believers will hunt you down.
Voices told Lucas Darby to run. Voices no one else can hear. He's warned his sister not to look for him, but Rayne refuses to let her troubled brother vanish on the streets of LA. In her desperate search, she meets Gabriel Stewart, a runaway with mysterious powers and far too many secrets. Rayne can't explain her crazy need to trust the strange yet compelling boy--to touch him--to protect him even though he scares her.
A fanatical church secretly hunts psychic kids--gifted "Indigo" teens feared to be the next evolution of mankind--for reasons only "the Believers" know. Now Rayne's only hope is Gabe, who is haunted by an awakening power--a force darker than either of them imagine--that could doom them all.
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Review:
I received an e-copy of this book from the publishers at NetGalley for a blog tour and an honest review.
I had heard about this book when I had first discovered book blogs. I started reading countless reviews and found myself practically salivating over the opportunity to read it. But, as what normally happens, the book was placed on my to-be read list and got swallowed by copious amounts of other books. If my to-be read list gets any longer, I don't know how I could possibly read them all. In most instances, this happens. It gets shuffled to the back burner until the sequel comes out. Once the sequel is available it makes the desire to read the first book that much greater. So here I am, finally reading the book I have wanted to read for ages.
The story of Rayne and Lucas Darby starts with Lucas finding his way from the mental hospital he was placed in after his parents were killed in a plane crash. His older sister, Mia, was at a loss as to what to do with him when he started hearing voices and acting erratic. Her only solution was one provided to her by the church she was a key member of. She locked her brother up and kept their sister, Rayne, away from him. Lucas, fearing what could happen to him if he stayed in the mental hospital any longer escaped and only contacted Rayne to tell her not to look for him. He had every intention of disappearing and finally living his life the way he wanted to. But the voices the medication had suppressed are back and one in particular, a girl's voice, urges him to find her and be a part of something bigger than he could have ever imaged.
Rayne's main objective is to find her baby brother and make sure he is safe. She knew the hospital he was in was not good for him, but with Lucas's guardianship falling on their older sister, Rayne had little say in the matter. Finally she has a chance to take care of her brother the way she should have in the first place. Along the way she meets Gabriel. He is an odd but attractive boy who seems content being a loner, until Rayne comes along. Rayne recognizes a lot of the same attributes in Gabe that she does in her own brother. Perhaps he is the only one who can understand her brother well enough to find him, if he actually leaves his protective cocoon to do so.
Rayne, Lucas, and Gabriel are in a war between the advanced, but often seen as mentally deranged children who are the beginning of a new race. Think humans 2.0. It is the church's mission to rid the world of those evolved adolescents and that starts with their recent escapee, Lucas.
This was one of those books that I was super excited about but found to be really hard to get into. Normally I can handle the swapping perspectives but for some reason when it would switch from Rayne to Lucas to Gabriel to Rafe to Kendra and so on I just found myself struggling to keep track. I'd be reading from Rayne's perspective and with no clear end to her story it would switch to Rafe or Lucas and I'd be left blinking at my e-reader and wondering if I had missed some sort of transitional cue. It kind of got so confusing that I would have to step away from the book for a bit. I hate doing that because then it makes the reading feel choppy to me.
So the format wasn't there for me. But the story as a whole was intriguing. It was a unique spin on the young adult fantasy genre. I have read a few similar books but not something that seemed like it would evolve into a full out war between normal people and these Indigo children. I am anxious to read the next book and see where it goes.
Overall, the book was good. Was it as mind-blowing as I had imagined it would be? Not exactly. But it was far from terrible.
Indigo Awakening combines evolutionary science with fantasy to create a dystopian world of intrigue.
