Review: Struck by Jennifer Bosworth

 

Struck (Struck #1)

By Jennifer Bosworth

Published: May 8th, 20112

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR

Hardcover, 373 pages

Mia Price is a lightning addict. She’s survived countless strikes, but her craving to connect to the energy in storms endangers her life and the lives of those around her.

Los Angeles, where lightning rarely strikes, is one of the few places Mia feels safe from her addiction. But when an earthquake devastates the city, her haven is transformed into a minefield of chaos and danger. The beaches become massive tent cities. Downtown is a crumbling wasteland, where a traveling party moves to a different empty building each night, the revelers drawn to the destruction by a force they cannot deny. Two warring cults rise to power, and both see Mia as the key to their opposing doomsday prophecies. They believe she has a connection to the freak electrical storm that caused the quake, and to the far more devastating storm that is yet to come.

Mia wants to trust the enigmatic and alluring Jeremy when he promises to protect her, but she fears he isn’t who he claims to be. In the end, the passion and power that brought them together could be their downfall. When the final disaster strikes, Mia must risk unleashing the full horror of her strength to save the people she loves, or lose everything. - Goodreads

3 stars

 Review 

When I fist stumbled across this book, I was very excited. It seemed like an original book that was different from anything else I've read, however, it didn't live up to my expectations.

It was that first statement that really grabbed me, "Mia Price is a lightning addict". That was what I was most interested in, Mia being a lightning addict and her special abilities connected to it. I thought that this was a great new idea, and I wanted to know more. Unfortunately, it was not explored nearly enough, and I was very disappointed. Instead, the story is all about how Mia falls in love with this beautiful and mysterious guy that won't tell her anything, how she unthinkingly runs into danger to save her family, and her being stupid again and again. From the summary I thought that it was an original story, but after looking under the surface it proved to be like most YA books.

One of the things that annoyed me the most was Mia, she is a nice girl who genuinely tries to help out, but she undermines herself. Almost all of of Mia's problems could have been avoided if she just sat down and talked it out. It bothered me that she didn't even think of talking to her brother, and then runs around trying to keep him out of trouble.

Some thing that did make me glad was that there wasn't a love triangle, I find love triangles a bit over done. Although, it was insta-love between Mia and Jeremy and there wasn't much development in their relationship. Jeremy is cool and mysterious, but not the brightest. He insists on not telling Mia the truth when the truth would have been much more convincing and effective. Besides that, I pretty much liked Jeremy, especially the shock that he provides towards the end.

I also liked how Mia's special abilities tie into the plot, and how it connects everything. Surprisingly enough, I didn't mind all of the religion in it, and I think that is because it made sense for the story. The rest of the book, including the writing, was ok, but it would have been so much better if it stuck to the originality of the beginning and continued with it instead of using so many cliches.

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