Review: Awakening

Author: Karice Bolton
Pages: 320
Publisher: Purely Persistent
Source: Review copy- thank you!
Challenge: Ultimate Reviewer's Challenge

Synopsis: Alone in snowy, remote Whistler village, Ana tries to build a new life since losing her parents. With a cozy condo, a sweet-faced bulldog and an evening job to leave the days free for the slopes, life slips into a great routine. If only she could shake the guilt for not remembering anything about her parents and banish the night terrors that haunt her every dream.

On a whim, Ana goes out with Athen, a guy she's just met in the Grizzly Pub... The only problem is that she feels like she already knows him. 

Within 48 hours of meeting Athen and his family, Ana's world implodes. She falls for Athen quickly and before she knows it, a past life begins to resurface. As thrilling as the revelations appear at first, she fights against the chilling information that Athen is from the underworld. Soon she begins to struggle as her own supernatural gifts are slowly unveiled, and she realizes that the nightmares she's been having might be premonitions and not dreams at all.

It is up to Ana to decipher between fact and fiction before it is too late, and her new love, Athen, follows in her same fate - one that is lost between two worlds.

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Awakening by Karice Bolton was a book I had many issues with. The book doesn't really feel ready and I had a lot of difficulty reading it.

It took me a really long time to finish Awakening. I honestly couldn't get into it. Some of my issues result from my personal preferences, but others are problems the book had itself.

The first would be the writing. In no way do I claim to be some writing expert, but the writing in this book distracted me from the scene and wasn't fun to read. Although there was nice diction, the dialogue sounded stilted and unnatural with the lack of contractions. There were way too many unnecessary details about random objects in a scene that really bogged down the story, and overall the style of writing wasn't easy to read. A lot of this could be resolved by a few more in depth edits. That's what I noticed and the writing really bothered me at the beginning while near the end I was more relaxed.

Another issue I had was absolutely no connection to any of the characters. None. They felt really one dimensional to me. Some of them were way too perfect with no real visible flaws or insecurities. The main character, Ana, didn't do much for me either. I kinda felt she was robotic and I don't really know much about her character beyond what's said about her.

The plot didn't improve the story. It was much too slow for my tastes. A lot of the story is Ana professing how much she loves Athen and her family while they go on parties and trips and stuff. It's not until the end that you realize there's more to it than that, but by that time I found it too little too late. The biggest issues were believability issues. There were many scenes and events that I couldn't relate with or that I found clichéd. The scene when Ana first sees Athen, Arie, and Cyril first comes to mind. Too much description was put there and I didn't feel any of the apparent emotions Ana was facing.

Overall, I hate to write a review like this, but I had a lot of trouble reading Awakening and I probably would have written it off as a DNF had I not agreed to review it. The book has potential and an interesting mythology, it just needs a lot of work before Awakening will shine. 1 star,

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