Title: Freeks
Author: Amanda Hocking
Release Date: January 3rd, 2017
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal
In a world of magical visions and pyrokinesis, Mara just wants to have a normal life. But is that possible?
Mara has become used to the extraordinary. Roaming from place to place with Gideon Davorin’s Traveling Carnival, she longs for an ordinary life where no one has the ability to levitate or predict the future.
She gets her chance when the struggling sideshow sets up camp in the small town of Caudry and she meets a gorgeous local guy named Gabe. But before long, Mara realizes there’s a dark presence lurking in the town that’s threatening the lives of her friends. She has seven days to take control of a power she didn’t know she had in order to save everyone she cares about—and change the future forever.
Summary from Goodreads.com
My Review: I was interested in this book, because I liked the idea of the whole carnival side show lifestyle. I find that kind of thing fascinating and thought it would be interesting to see what life was like from the perspective of someone living in that life. The book is classified as Young Adult, but I think I would amend it to be New Adult. The protagonist was an older teen and dealt with issues that would keep younger teen from easily relating with Mara. I did like Mara, I thought she had a good head on her shoulders and was interested to follow her on her journey. She made smart choices and I liked that she stood up for what she wanted and believed in.
From the summary of the book, I thought we would follow the carnival and there would be a little mystery about an animal or something that is causing problems in the town they travel too. And for three fourths of the book that is what we are lead to believe, but the last fifty pages or so, the story just starts getting strange. It veers off in a direction I did not see coming and not in a good way. Don’t get me wrong, I love paranormal and mysteries, but this book just took a detour that did not really fit with the rest of the story and actually made me dislike it by the time I reached the end. There were too many things happening and the core of the story is lost in all of the random side directions the plot took.
The writing was okay, but not the best. I felt like issues were skimmed over that could have been flushed out more and the ending wrapped up too quickly and with too many unanswered questions. I really wanted to like this book, and for a while I was enjoying it, but the ending just left me disappointed. I don’t think I will be looking into this author anymore after this simply because I did not enjoy her style or book as much as I had hoped. The material for a good book is there, it was just not executed well.
FTC: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
