review: possession - elana johnson

POSSESSION

Elana Johnson
Release Date: June 7th 2011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 416

Rating: 1 out of 5

"Vi knows the Rule: Girls don't walk with boys, and they never even think about kissing them. But no one makes Vi want to break the Rules more than Zenn...and since the Thinkers have chosen him as Vi's future match, how much trouble can one kiss cause? The Thinkers may have brainwashed the rest of the population, but Vi is determined to think for herself.

But the Thinkers are unusually persuasive, and they're set on convincing Vi to become one of them...starting by brainwashing Zenn. Vi can't leave Zenn in the Thinkers' hands, but she's wary of joining the rebellion, especially since that means teaming up with Jag. Jag is egotistical, charismatic, and dangerous--everything Zenn's not. Vi can't quite trust Jag and can't quite resist him, but she also can't give up on Zenn. This is a game of control or be controlled. And Vi has no choice but to play "

Wow, I'm not even sure what to say about this book. 99% of the time I was reading it I had NO idea what was going on. It read as though Elana was writing a draft, full of ideas and plot points but they were disjointed. You get completely thrown in at the deep end into a confusing world which doesn't get satisfactory explanation and just continues to get more strange.

The characters also seemed shallow to me. Vi, rebels against the 'goodies' but we never are told why. She also claims to be completely in love with her match, Zenn, but as soon as she meets Jag she seems to forget all about Zenn. Oh and she 'falls in love' with Jag, despite the fact there is no build-up to this romance, and it seems to have occurred over days.. Jag as a character has no substance, and to be perfectly honest the way he calls Vi 'babe' make me feel slightly ill.The only character I actually cared about in this book was Zenn, which is kind of ironic I guess.

I read all of Possession, in the hopes that there would be explanations, or a sudden character development that would actually make me care what happened, but there was nothing. I'm still in mixed minds whether to read the sequel, such a shame as the book had such promise, and some of the ideas were interesting but the writing style was just so horrendous.