Book: Awakening by Christopher Keeler and Matthew KeelerGenre: YA urban fantasy
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★
Years ago, (has it really been years already?) I was lucky enough to read this book as a sort of beta-reader for Matt (Matt-from-Australia as he is known at our house since we have a lot of Matts in our lives) and his brother Chris, when I first discovered he was writing a book. At the time I knew him as a fellow kpop fan and when I learned he was also an aspiring author I was all over that! It's been fun to watch as he's made his writing dreams come true all the way to publishing this real live book!
In order to properly review it I have just finished a re-read...because my memory is crap these days and I needed to be reminded about pretty much everything that happened in this story!
And... this story is about our girl Jenna who is a typical ordinary awkward teen who is struggling with self esteem and worried about things like the upcoming dance and friends and boys and working for the crazy cat lady next door. But things change when she is given a message to go meet a mysterious someone who has something to give her.
She enlists the help of her friends and together they go face whatever is going to happen and from then on they are mixed up something big and crazy and dangerous. At first it's just a series of strange occurrences, mysterious objects, weird feelings and visions and scary people appearing out of nowhere. But it quickly morphs into a sort of revolution between powerful entities... some who have bad intentions for humanity and some who have rebelled to fight against that. It appears that Jenna, although she doesn't remember, is a key element in making this rebellion succeed.
It's an intense story with lots of crazy things going on constantly! Which escalates to a final battle filled with both guns and magic!
It's one of those cool stories were the ordinary kids find an inner power they had no idea they had and become the strong heroes. It's awesome.
And, if you know me, you will know that I especially enjoyed the romance part of this story. Jenna is drawn to a mysterious stranger who at first fleets in and out of the story, never really sticking around. When the two finally meet, the intensity is "out of this world" as you might say. I wished for more between them, more scenes and connection, but alas, they never really had much time because there was a world to save!
Another one of my favorite things about this book is how Matt and Chris have included so so many songs as a sort of musical background to everything that's going on. I know many authors write with music, but rarely is that music actually a part of the book itself. Since the reason I know Matt is because of our common passion for music, I felt the need to mark every time a song is mentioned with the intention to list them! And make a playlist! And look them up and add new music to my life!
So here's that playlist on Spotify! Check it out if you are into all sorts of music from classical to pop, country to movie scores, old and new... and yes Korean! So much fun!
This is book one in a series called Starwalker Chronicles. I look forward to what Jenna and her friends will be up to next! And also, congratulations to Matt and Chris for making this book happen!
It is fun when authors incorporate things they like into their work, music being one of them. It adds such an interesting dimension to a fictional work when there is real-world elements to it. Like the ability to go create a real playlist out of music referenced in the story. How cool is that?
ReplyDeleteSo cool! Now I want to read it yet again, with the playlist by my side, to see how the songs make sense with what's happening in the book. I love it!
DeleteI wouldn't blame you, it would be fun. I've read LOTR books listening to the film soundtracks before, which was fun.
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