Author/Editor: SM Knowles
Publisher: Amazon CreateSpace
Rating: WORTHY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is reward aplenty!
Errata:
p35 Layla is referenced as "Riley"
p130 "…if I he looked into my eyes." (one personal pronoun too many!)
This is the first of a quadrilogy, and I liked it, but it's a bit young for me, and aimed squarely at girls, so I'm not about to read any more, but this one I liked, even though the title of the book seems to be in question. The Advance Review Copy (ARC) I got was titled Unusual Ending for the file-name, but the novel inside the file was titled Unusual Awakening. Neither title made a lot of sense, although the latter did begin to, given how this ended.
One annoying thing in the ARC was this large purple text angled across every page reading: 'Please Don’t Forward'. It obscured the text, and so was really annoying! However, it wasn't visible in the Kindle version, only in the Adobe Digital Editions version. Strange! But then this was a strange novel!
As Steve Martin put it in LA Story the author has some interesting word usements she structures; however, the story was quite endearing and I found myself wanting to read this story, which is exactly what any author wants!
The story is first person PoV, which I normally don't like, even though I understand it's inexplicably taken on the vesture of a law of nature in juvenile literature these days; however, this voice was actually quite endearing so I did not find this as objectionable as I often do. What I did find strange is that it switched to an alternative first person PoV in chapter sixteen, for one chapter, and then back again. Weird. This is one reason why I don't normally like 1PoV: it's far too limiting to an author and it gets them in trouble.
It's told, to begin with, from the PoV of Rylee Everly, who is fifteen, going on sixteen. Her dad is shipping out to Afghanistan for a two-year tour of duty, and the family isn’t coping. Her younger twin sisters (Ava and Zoe who seem to act way too young for their age) are troublesome, and mom has pretty much shut down.
Rylee is managing - not well but she's at least functional. She pretty much becomes the 'man of the house' since her mom sadly isn’t stepping-up. One day she runs for the school bus and is - somehow - hit by it. She ends up in hospital with broken arm and a banged-up head. She's out of school for a week. Keep the odd nature of this accident in mind, because you'll need it for later in the story!
Brock Parker has been Rylee's 'best friend' since they were young. He's Rylee's neighbor's kid. He's asked to watch over the girls when Rylee gets out of hospital and has a sleep-over with four friends, but he's pretty much stalking them in the woods in the dark until Rylee confronts him. She has a weird kind of on-again off-again friendship with Brock, but neither of them seems capable of going deeper into their feelings which honestly begs the question of how close a friendship they really have.
As I mentioned, Rylee is coping with the absence and potential loss of their dad, but ever since she hit her head in the accident, she starts thinking she's in contact with him without the use of a phone! She keeps hearing his voice - at least, she believes it's his.
The odd thing is that it's pretty much limited to warning her about staying away from boys - since they're bad. You knew that, right? He says nothing about girls! Rylee wonders about the voice but she never links it to her head injury or questions her sanity. She buys right into it being dad.
When she goes to the Snow Ball - a cutely-named winter dance at school - she hears his voice telling her she must leave. Later the voice warns her away from Brock. She's known Brock all her life. Surely the voice can’t be her father? Or can it? And if it is, what's it all mean? Is he dead?! Maybe when we meet Adysin, when she takes over the narrative in chapter sixteen, we'll learn more about what's going on? Adysin has some interesting information to share, which I'm not going to spoil for you.
Warning! There's a cliff-hanger ending, so if you become addicted to this you will need to get the next volume, and the next....
I liked this one volume. It took a bit of getting into here and there, and it was a bit young for me, but it was a good story. Note that you will need to pay close attention, or you'll find yourself skipping back a page or two thinking "Wait, what?", but it was a worthy read.
