This is a depressingly cookie-cutter YA series starter wherein the author seems to have made a bet with herself that she could get every single YA trope into the book in the first 100 screens and I think she succeeded, so I was quickly convinced that this novel would not be occupying my 'currently reading' list for long. The book blurb insists that "Harper Madison isn't like other girls" and then the author goes on to give the lie to that by making her exactly like every other YA girl. To whit: Harper is a troubled child, who is also an orphan child, and who is starting a new school. You could switch the main character's two names and still have a trope YA main character name. Harper Madison? Madison Harper? It doesn't make any difference.
Harper has the "I like the bad boy, but I also like the hot quarterback golden boy syndrome, aka a triangle. Despite the fact that Jackson smokes, and she detests smoking, she still has the hots for him and not a single word is spoken about him smelling like an ashtray. Sorry, but no. On top of this, she quickly runs afoul of the school queen bee, who is also a cheerleader and a bully. If Harper had had some backbone on their first encounter, I'd have had more respect for her, but no. There's also the trope obsession with boys in this novel to the extent that every other conversation these girls have is about boys and no other topics seem ever to enter their heads. Seriously, who reads this stuff? It's pure garbage that's almost exactly like nearly every other YA trilogy ever written. It's pathetic.
Harper apparently has the power of telekinesis, but she's never explored it. She's so stupid that she seems at a loss to even understand it. Never once has her curiosity prodded her to experiment with it, or to examine it, or try to control it. I'm sorry but this disqualifies her as a main character for me. It's not only unnatural, it makes for a bad story. If someone has a talent, it encourages them to employ it or take advantage of it and exploit it, but not this girl.
Now admittedly Harper has apparently ended-up killing her adoptive father because of this, so perhaps she's afraid, but this still doesn't explain why she's never played with the phenomenon prior to that. And if she felt bad about that accidental (or was it?!) death, then why hasn't she tried to control it since then? This death is also a problem: if she's guilty of manslaughter, then why hasn't she spent time in Juvie? They considered that she was guilty of starting a fire in which someone died - and she got away with it?
Given the title of the book, it was tempting to assume that those cheerleaders were all demons, or had sold their soul to a demon or something like, which might account for their extreme beauty and attitude, but I also wondered if the title was just misleading and these girls were not demons at all, but merely witches or magicians. Our lead girl, who is I assume going to come out in opposition to these people, hasn't yet figured this out. She's also lost her treasured pendant - the only thing she had left of her mom - which she obsesses upon in a deranged manner despite not even knowing this mom who gave away her daughter. I assume the pendant has been purloined by the demon girls in order to employ it to try to wreak havoc in Harper's life, but Harper isn't smart enough to figure that out. Her inexplicable focus on this, given that her mom ditched her, leads her to break out of the last chance girl's home she's been deposited in.
Her idiot idea is all about going her to find this pendant, when she hasn't even considered that she may have left it at home, or dropped it in the van on the journey to the game. So she steals a bike and rides to the stadium - which isn't in darkness, inexplicably, but is lit well enough for her to spy on one of the cheerleaders. The thing is that Harper is on her hands and knees under the bleachers and waiting for a chance to sneak out, when she loses her balance and falls over backwards with a whoop. What? How can you fall over backwards when you're on your hands and knees? And knowing she needs to be silent, she still lets out a whoop? This was ridiculous.
Harper nearly gets caught after the older guy who's with this cheerleader, Tori, upon whom she's spied, comes after her. Despite the fact that it's too dark for Harper to see him clearly, they can see her hidden under the bleachers! She miraculously gets away and of course, coincidence upon coincidence, Jackson is waiting in the barn when she returns the bike. She's all hot for him and his "rippling muscles." Barf. The next day, Tori turns up dead and Harper is the prime suspect for no apparent reason. She's hauled in for questioning from school in the middle of the day for no apparent reason and despite being able to move things with her mind, she ponders being trapped inescapably in the back of the police car. How dumb is Harper? This is seriously bad writing.
It gets worse. Without being read her rights and without being allowed to have an adult present, sixteen year old Harper is grilled by the sheriff who knows of her Jedi mind-tricks. You'd think with her history of multiple foster homes, Harper would have grown a pair, but instead of being badass and resisting the sheriff, she caves completely. Pathetic. It got worse though. I read this bit which finally decided me on giving up this trash. This is when the golden boy who's treated her like shit suddenly has a volte face and Harper isn't even really suspicious!
He put his palm on my cheek. I backed away, surprised, but he stepped forward and ran his fingertip along my chin line. "I was a real jerk to treat you like that," he said softly. "I understand if you want nothing to do with me, but I'm willing to do anything it takes to convince you that I'm sincere." I swallowed hard. Was I overreacting? "That first day we met in my sister's store, I thought you were beautiful," he said. He took my hand in his and caressed the side of my index finger...
So once again a guy thinks he can do whatever he wants to a girl he was downright mean to earlier, and what does this female author tell us? That it's okay. That the girl will let you - will accept your manhandling of her regardless of how you treated her in the past. That your only worth is your beauty. Nothing else matters. This is pure shit and any author, female or not, ought to be thoroughly ashamed of this kind of writing and reject it out of hand. Shame on you Sarra Cannon.
It's worse than that, though because this author evidently also thinks it's fine to have a weak female character who has no integrity, so self-respect, no spine, no moral core, and who, most despicably, instinctively thinks she's weaker than any male. I don't care about female characters like that. I have no interest in reading about them. I also think this turn the novel takes here proves how pathetic first person voice is, and what a seriously brain-dead choice it is for most novels, because in addition to the above, we also have Harper forgetting what happened - forgetting she was making out with Jackson not long before.
Now this is because, obviously, some sort of a spell has been put on her, but the fact is that Harper is the one relating this story word for word, conversation for conversation. How is it possible given that she's already recorded what happened, that she forgot it? Can she not go back and see what's she's written? If she's writing this later, then what accounts for her perfect memory of events - and if she has a perfect memory why is she forgetting stuff? If she forgot it, how could she have recorded the earlier part of the story? None of this makes a lick of sense! This is why first person is dumb as fuck. Once in a while it works, but usually no. Just no.
This story was too stupid to live and I ditched it at around 20% which was way more than it deserved. I ought to bill the author for wasting my valuable time!
