ARC Review: Stranelets by Michelle Gagnon

Strangelets

Author:  Michelle Gagnon
Series: Standalone

Publisher: Soho Teen
Release Date: April 7th, 2013
Source: Review copy Received via Edelweiss
 Thank you so much for providing me with a copy to review!
Purchase: Amazon| B&N 

Summary:

17-year-old Sophie lies on her deathbed in California, awaiting the inevitable loss of her battle with cancer…
17-year-old Declan stares down two armed thugs in a back alley in Galway, Ireland…
17-year-old Anat attempts to traverse a booby-trapped tunnel between Israel and Egypt…

All three strangers should have died at the exact same moment, thousands of miles apart. Instead, they awaken together in an abandoned hospital—only to discover that they’re not alone. Three other teens from different places on the globe are trapped with them. Somebody or something seems to be pulling the strings. With their individual clocks ticking, they must band together if they’re to have any hope of surviving. 

Soon they discover that they've been trapped in a future that isn't of their making: a deadly, desolate world at once entirely familiar and utterly strange. Each teen harbors a secret, but only one holds the key that could get them home. As the truth comes to light through the eyes of Sophie, Declan, and Anat, the reader is taken on a dark and unforgettable journey into the hearts of teens who must decide what to do with a second chance at life

Strangelets has a very interesting summary that makes you want to jump straight in. It grabbed me as soon as I read it. Strangelets is honestly very hard to describe because it’s one of those books that you just can’t put into words. It’s honestly the weirdest and most complex book I’ve  read so far.

Strangelets is told from three perspectives – Declan, Sophie and Anat. Declan, Sophie and Anat encounter a near death experience; all from different places around the world. After their encounter, they all wake up in an abandoned infirmary. Where, they met each other and three other characters. Nobody knows where they are, what happened, or even who the rest of the characters are. When they finally leave this hospital, they find out that nothing is as it seems. With no one around, but themselves they soon find out how hard it is to survive. Little do they know that there’s something more than what they expected out there.

My first problem was that I couldn’t connect with either of the characters. This made me read at a turtle’s pace. Declan was quite frankly a jerk who was very indecisive. Sophie, who was actually quite kind at the beginning, soon became aggravating because she was always complaining. While, I understand that she was sick it just became so aggravating to hear her whining all the time. The love connection between Sophie and Declan was meant to pull me in more, but somehow it made me less interested and very predictable. I will say that it was very predictable because you’re reading both characters perspectives and they were always worried about each other. As for Anat, she was in nice terms, mean and very stuck up towards all the rest of the characters; this made her very dis likeable.

Secondly, the pacing of this story was a bit off for me. While reading I became very confused as to what was going on because the story either moved too fast or too slow. At one point in the story I literally read three pages, stopped and came back like an hour later to do the same thing.

While this book did have some cons for me, I have to say there was a pro. I was interested in what was going to happen until the end. This is one of those stories that have a mystery element. One that you have to read until the end or else you’ll sit there wondering what happened. When these creatures showed up I just had to find out how the world came to the state it was now or where they were.  These creatures, by the way, totally freaked me out! I was terrified when they encountered them.

 While the love connections in this story made me even less interested at first, I started to grow to love them.  In the end Sophie was probably the most likeable character in this story even if she did whine at one point or another. 

Maybe my expectations for this book were just too high because this book did disappoint me in the end. The pacing was off for me & I didn’t connect with the characters as much as I had liked. Maybe it was the fact that the story was told in three different prospective that threw me off.  The mystery aspect of it is also threw me off, but in a good way because this was the one part of the story that was not predictable in my opinion.

Strangelets is defiantly a different kind of book. It intrigues you until the end and is very fast pace. If you like an action packed book with a dash of romance and mystery, this is defiantly the book for you and should give it a try!