Skip to main content

Sensitive by Nina Wright

This year instead of reading any creepy (or at least paranormal) books in preparation for Halloween, the bug hit me after the fact. Bookshelves of Doom's review intrigued me so I ordered a copy of Nina Wright's Sensitive and, in a shockingly uncharacteristic move, decided to forego the prequel, Homefree, and just jump right in. I liked the premise. Easter Hutton, her best friend Andrew, and her kinda-sorta boyfriend Cal are sensitives, meaning they have abilities a little left of normal. Andrew can read memories, Cal practices psychokinesis, and Easter is capable of astral projection. Translation: her spirit can travel through time and space without leaving her body. All three of them are part of Homefree--an underground organization that educates and trains paranormally minded teens. Fun premise, no? Throw in Easter's rather monumentally maternally challenged alcoholic mother and the mysterious Homefree headmaster Mr. Fairless and it sounds like a fun ride to me.

The thing was the story never let me in. The writing told me that Easter and Cal had the hots for each other and that Andrew was somehow more endangered by his abilities than the other two, but those things never really hit me. I never felt the passion or danger. I feel like lately I'm always asking for longer books. I'm not sure why this is the case. It takes a lot to create fully developed characters and have them burst forth on the page for your reader, living and breathing and calling out each other's names. Some authors are able to do this on a small page count. Their stories leave me satisfied instead of aching for more. Meg Rosoff, Garret Freymann-Weyr, and Laura Wiess leap to mind. Others simply require more pages. I felt like Sensitive could have benefited from a few (maybe 100) more, along with a little more willingness to let the reader in and feel with the characters. At the end of the book, I felt like I'd just gotten home from one of those freshman year college dates with the guy who begins every sentence with the words, "I'm the kind of guy who..."
Stop right there. If you have to tell me, it's all over.

Links:
Bookshelves of Doom Review
Bildungsroman Interview

Comments

  1. Anonymous12:09 PM

    Hey, I'm glad you reviewed SENSITIVE even if you and I don't agree about it. In fact, we had very nearly opposite responses. I was completely caught up in the characters and story, and read the novel in a single sitting. For me the connection was deeply emotional, perhaps because of my personal history with addiction. The ending left me in tears of relief, loss and hope. Quite an accomplishment on the part of the writer. I realize it's all subjective, but I recommend this book.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:40 PM

    i'm with fiona on this one. no history of addiction but i still loved the story. i enjoyed homefree and liked the sequel even better.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm glad to hear from people who liked it so much. It's true, I didn't identify with the characters on a personal level and that may have interfered with my reading of it. I really liked the way Easter and Cal and Andrew were shaping up. I guess I'm greedy and wanted more. Perhaps I really should have read Homefree beforehand. What were your favorite aspects of the characters/story?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

You Might Also Like

Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols

I can't quit Jennifer Echols . Not that I really try that hard, but I read her new ones and often feel as though I'm still searching for that one in possession of that certain something that will make me feel the way  Going Too Far did. Like I couldn't put it it down. And definitely like I didn't hate either of the main characters after the fact. Well, I found it with Such a Rush . I read this 300+ pager in a single night, which clears up the question of whether or not I couldn't put it down. And I finished it definitely not hating either of the main characters. I didn't finish it loving them both unreservedly, though. I loved Leah with my whole heart from page one and that never changed. My feelings regarding one of the Hall brothers remain complicated. More to come on this in a bit. On a side note, I'm delighted that Such a Rush is Ms. Echols' hardcover debut. It's a meticulously designed book, a pleasure to hold in my hands as I stayed up way

Bibliocrack Review | The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

 Hi. Hey. Hello there. It's been a . . . well, you know what it's been. We're all still living this together. So I will simply skip to the fact that I couldn't not review this book here. Because reading it was something special. I knew nothing about Ali Hazelwood 's debut novel except that it involved women in STEM and that the cover made me smile. I decided to set it aside for myself as a reward. Work has been . . . punishing . . . for the last year, and I have been so exhausted every hour of every day. And so I determined to buy The Love Hypothesis  on release day knowing nothing about it. But when I went to the bookstore to get my copy, none were available. In fact, none were available anywhere for love nor money, in store or online. At first I was moderately disappointed. Then I told myself maybe it's not that great after all and I didn't necessarily need to feel this preemptive sense of loss. But it kept gnawing at me. The loss. And so I paused work an

Interview with Diana Peterfreund + Rampant Giveaway!

Ever since I fell in love with Diana Peterfreund 's Secret Society Girl series last year, I've been hoping I'd get the chance to interview her here. Tomorrow marks the release of her new novel, Rampant , and let me tell you that you have not read a book like this before. You can read my review here , but all you really need to know is that it's a story about killer unicorns and the young women who hunt them. You want to read it now, don't you? Oh, yeah, and it's YA and the first in a series! To celebrate the release, Diana graciously answered a few of my most burning questions. As she is always a delight, I know you'll enjoy them as much as I did. First things first: When did the idea for Rampant first hit you and what (if anything) did you know right off the bat? In early 2005, just after selling Secret Society Girl , I had this dream of being chased by a very dangerous unicorn. I woke up and went to go look it up to see if I could figure out the meanin