Tuesday 11 June 2013

The Fallen Star (The Fallen Star #1) by Jessica Sorensen


Jenna is a normal teenager... Wait, let me start again. Jenna is not a normal teenager because until recently she was unable to feel. Anything. She also lives with her grandparents with whom she has an extremely strained (putting it mildly) relationship. Jenna has no clue why she is so different from everybody; why she has purple eyes or why she can't experience normal human emotions. But then one day the flood opens and she starts feeling these prickling sensations on the back of her head. She suddenly feels. Fear. Anger. Sadness. Jenna is not able to control her sudden outbursts and is absolutely baffled by her reactions. Then one day she bumps into a new guy at school and her life turns into a mess of epic porportions.

What attracted me to this book was that Jenna is 18 years old (not a child at 16, yay!) and that she can't (couldn't) experience emotions. And what turned me off were the similarities with a book we all are very familiar with. I jotted down a few:

- heroine and hero meet in school,
- hero seems to inexplicably intensely hate the heroine from the beginning,
- they are forced to work together in class,
- there are sparks although hero tries to hide his attraction,
- hero has an annoyingly nice sister (named Aisling, get it? Aisling, Alice?),
- hero takes the heroine to a "special" place,
- hero lifts a gigantic branch over his head like it weighs nothing (and the other dude saved the girl by stopping a car).

Have you figured out which book does it remind me of? Twilight, doh. However, things changed somewhere in the middle of the book and the Twilight references stopped there. Suddenly it turned into an action packed The Shadow Society with all sorts of creatures, hidden agendas, plans to save (and ruin) the world and mysteries. Because there is a reason Jenna is different and her 'grandparents' knew about it all along. Speak of the grandparents - I couldn't believe my eyes when I read about Jenna's relationship with her only family. What striked me as weird was that Jenna didn't really question why they're treating her so bad. That's not normal! But I guess since she was emotionless she didn't know how horrible they were to her and the explanation we get later makes everything fall into perspective. 

Jenna is an ok heroine, but that is all. She is average despite having purple eyes and a week after reading the book I am still not sure whether I like that she talks to the reader sometimes. "Well, you get the picture." No I don't! Stop doing that and start acting like a real book! (I guess I didn't like it, hee.) There were not enough descriptions of people, places and situations and I really need those in a book. I need it to create a mini film in my head through which I can experience what is going on in the book. And if there are not enough descriptions, how am I supposed to do that? 

There were many things left unsaid and for this reason I will read the second book in the instalment. It's not that The Fallen Star has disappointed me - it's just that I expected so much more since it had so much potential! A girl with no emotions, for Joaquin's sake! And the secondary characters are so bland I can't even think of one person from that book who is not the hero and heroine. Also, don't even get me started on Alex, the "hero"! He is one lying, manipulating son of a peacock (if I may borrow this expression from a friend) whose intentions toward Jenna are still a little shady. I really need to read the sequel so I can form a solid opinion on this series. I'm also getting tired of this genre, I think I'll switch to something else for a few months so I can recover and return to my sharp, opinionated self. 


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