Sixteen-year-old Evangeline "Evie" Greene leads a charmed life, until she begins experiencing horrifying hallucinations. When an apocalyptic event decimates her Louisiana hometown, Evie realizes her hallucinations were actually visions of the future—and they're still happening. Fighting for her life and desperate for answers, she must turn to her wrong-side-of-the-bayou classmate: Jack Deveaux.
But she can't do either alone.
With his mile-long rap sheet, wicked grin, and bad attitude, Jack is like no boy Evie has ever known. Even though he once scorned her and everything she represented, he agrees to protect Evie on her quest. She knows she can't totally depend on Jack. If he ever cast that wicked grin her way, could she possibly resist him?
Who can Evie trust?
As Jack and Evie race to find the source of her visions, they meet others who have gotten the same call. An ancient prophesy is being played out, and Evie is not the only one with special powers. A group of twenty-two teens has been chosen to reenact the ultimate battle between good and evil. But it's not always clear who is on which side.
It’s got a gorgeous cover, so there’s something going for it, at least.
That sounded really harsh, and I hate being mean when I know someone puts a lot of work into something and is extremely proud of it… but I feel like there was absolutely no heart in this book. I felt like the author just slapped stuff together because she wanted a bestselling YA novel she knew she could achieve. The characters are boring and stereotypical, the world used up and, while being a depressing dystopian world filled with horrors, seemingly easy to survive, compared to other ones. Let’s break it down:
Plot- I knew who the bad guy was the second it was mentioned. There isn’t really a “bad guy” I should say, but the figure haunting Evie’s dreams is who I’m talking about. It was obvious with a capital O. And the matters of sex. The whole book tries to be steamy, but it’s not really. There was very little chemistry between Jack and Evie, even less between him and Selena. Plus, Evie’s pretty much worried about who to give her V-Card away to, and it was rather uncomfortable reading that when the world was ending around her.
Characters- Boring and barely there. Evie is that girl I would hate in school. Very popular, super smart, and a “friend” to everyone. What little perfect world does she live in that that can all happen? I can see by the end why characterizing her so extremely (it’s a case of telling rather than showing, btw) is important, but I also feel like it was totally unrealistic. And annoying, because no one can be that perfect. And her major character flaw? She might be crazy. Come on, we know she’s not. It’s the oldest trick in the book. So really, she’s not crazy, she’s just a super important person. She’s not a mean person, though. Not bratty or whiny, which was nice and comfortable reading about, but also totally unrealistic. Who doesn’t complain when the world just ended? No one’s that perfect. Then there’s Jack. His accent- Cajun- really got on my nerves. I couldn’t pinpoint it through the writing. It sounded a little like he just had a lisp or something because he didn’t say every word with an accent, really. Just a few, most particularly, “goan” instead of “going” and “doan” instead of “doing”. It didn’t work and it was very frustrating. When there’s a character with an accent I like it to fly off the page so I can hear it. He’s also supposed to be really Catholic, but he never really acts that way.
World- Dystopia is all the rage, and while it’s not my favorite genre (I prefer fantasy), I can appreciate a well written one. At first I thought it might be a pretty cool world. Bag men, militia’s, cannibals, slavers, etc. They’ve been seen before, but I’ve never really seen them together. Guess what? I still didn’t. They kept saying all these things existed, but, I don’t really believe it until I “see” it, and we never “see” half of them. So, it wasn’t just a plain world, where they were somehow managing to survive, but it was a really boring one, too.
The Good- Tarot cards! I love tarot cards, I think they’re so pretty and fun, which is part of the reason I was attracted to this story. That portion of it didn’t let me down. Each tarot had its own personality and alliance and I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED that aspect of the story.
So overall, I’m giving this a three star rating. I may read the next book. I may not. Really, it depends on whether my library has it or not. So, we’ll see.
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