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May 27, 2011

Wendy Darling rated it:

Oh! This is so cool.That was my reaction late last night when I finished this book and the feeling hasn't worn off. Ultraviolet is one of those sneaky books that makes you think you're reading one thing and then all the sudden, whoosh, you're off on a different adventure. I think many of us who spend a lot of time in the paranormal genre have come to expect a certain story structure from these types of books, but this one has no problem bending all the rules and leaping out to explore other dime More...

74 comments like (84 people liked it)

Oct 11, 2011

karen rated it:

tommy has been telling me about A Mango-Shaped Space for a long time now, and after reading this, i both want to read that book and also to have synesthesia myself, please. it's like having a superpower that doesn't require you, morally, to go out and save the world. it is more like being on a mild acid trip all the time, without any of the accompanying backaches and food-aversion.

of course, in this book, her synesthesia is compounded with other special gifts which both complicate he More...

31 comments like (51 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2012

Leanne rated it:

4.5 stars

Oh.

This book was good.

At first, I was a bit iffy because purple prose isn't my cup of tea and this book was oozing of embellished prose, and seemed to be rather bloated with overwrought and bombastic writing. But then, I was drawn into Alison's captivating story, and there Anderson had me under her spell and I devoured this book within a day. Not a small fit considering I so dislike flowery language.

The synesthesia aspects, the supernatural e More...

12 comments like (17 people liked it)

Jul 02, 2011

Elle rated it:

In the interest of staying fair to R.J.Anderson I will make it clear that Ultraviolet is a five star book.

Or, at least the first 230ish pages are from a five star book and the remaining few chapters belong in WTF Capital City. But more on that later.

Initially, be prepared to be sucked in to the weaving vortex that is Ultraviolet. From the get go we are presented with a puzzle the likes of which I have not experienced in a long time.

There's nothing wors More...

8 comments like (23 people liked it)

Jun 09, 2011

Maja rated it:

I'm always a little hesitant to review the books I loved. It seems like nothing I write can ever be good enough. That's exactly the case this time. I'll try to keep it short and very clear: this book blew me away!
It took only about 30 pages for me to fall in love with Ultraviolet. If I remember correctly, I called Anderson's writing unpretentious and rich with emotion when I just started reading, and I stand by my words now that I've finished. What amazed me the most about it was the way More...

17 comments like (26 people liked it)

Feb 21, 2012

Stephanie rated it:

Ultraviolet was such a pleasant surprise! I've been thinking about this review for a few days because it's hard to say something about it without giving too much away. It's one of those books that you just have to go in knowing absolutely nothing. So, I will try my best to keep this short and sweet. :)

Ultraviolet is about a girl named Alison who ends up in a mental institute after she has a psychotic break, during which she confesses to murdering a fellow classmate. What makes thi More...

3 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2012

Lucy rated it:

Sixteen, almost seventeen, year old Alison wakes up in a psych ward after a mental breakdown during which she claimed over and over again she killed one of the most popular girls in her high school. From page one, Alison attempts to convince herself that her break with reality was a temporary thing, even though she grew up believing she might be insane. Alison has always experienced synthesia although she knows nothing about it beyond her personal experiences. Her mother thinks she's schizophren More...

23 comments like (17 people liked it)

Jun 21, 2011

Crowinator rated it:

I love me an unreliable narrator, particularly when you can’t identify what kind of unreliable he or she is. Is he sincere in his beliefs but crazy? Is she a pathological liar? Is he a con man intentionally deceiving his audience? Is she just out of the loop, a narrator who thinks she knows what’s going on but is actually being tricked by others? I stayed up until almost midnight to finish this in a marathon reading session, and I found it an incredibly addictive genre-bender.

Alison More...

3 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jun 27, 2011

Jo rated it:

Initial Final Page Thoughts.
Enjoyable… but I kind of wish we could’ve read t’other story mentioned at the beginning with the girl with the odd-shaped birthmark. No offense Alison, you’re cool and all but… yeah. Also, can you say ‘sequel’? I’d be OK with that, I think.

High Points.
What an opening! Highly visual writing that did not provoke a single eye-roll (OK, there was a little towards the end but I’ll discuss that later). A strong heroine who only gets a bit annoying toward More...

2 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2012

Sherwood added it

I have been hoping to get away from the formulaic sketchily-designed dystopia centered around one badass girl who is in love with two guys (whether they are angel and devil, vampire and werewolf, or whatever) and wow, so far, this book smashes the formula to pieces.

Starting with a heroine who is a synaesthete.

Okay, I simply gobbled this book down. It would be criminal to spoil it, so let me just observe that this is a genuine YA book, that is, not an adult book disguised as Y More...

8 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 27, 2011

Lisa O. rated it:

In every novel worth its name there is an abundance of figures of speech such as metaphor, simile, oxymoron. They are part of the texture of the narration and are employed to enforce the first rule of Writing 101, which is to show and not to tell.

I remember quite distinctly having studied rhetorical figures during my high school years in Italian classes and I knew synesthesia from such classes. I still remember one example quite distinctly taken from a poem by Pascoli: “un pigolio di More...

8 comments like (10 people liked it)

Jul 28, 2011

Vivian rated it:

Don't pick up this book unless you have a block of uninterrupted reading time because once you start, you will not be able to put it down. The book is truly addicting.

Ultraviolet starts off with Alison, a teenage girl, who winds up in a mental institution with the memory of killing the most popular girl in school, Tori, and no idea how she did it. The story that follows is not only about answering the questions behind the murder, but answering the questions about the strange abilitie More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jul 14, 2011

Wendy F rated it:

Ultraviolet is one of those types of books that once you begin reading you're hooked. It definitely made me think about it all the time. It was one of those reads that makes it hard to fall asleep because you have a million thoughts in your head.

I could pick apart the things about the book that bothered me, because there were a few things that prevented me from moving it into a 5 star. But instead I'd rather focus on how beautifully I feel it was written. The way she described th More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 17, 2012

Angela rated it:

Read via NetGalley.

Ultraviolet is a novel unlike any other, I have to admit. But the plot was rather slow. You already know what is so special about Alison, if you know about some physical phenomenons. But it takes at least half of the book just for someone to reveal Alison's special senses. It is pretty common known knowledge that there are some people in the world who can see the colors in numbers. Those people (well some of them) are pretty famous or had news coverage of them on t More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 30, 2011

Laura rated it:

More reviews at A Work of Fiction!

Have you ever finished a book and wondered, “How has this been hiding here all this time? Pages away, a masterpiece was waiting and I held it all this time, oblivious.”?
That was my initial thought when I finished Ultraviolet. I never thought a book whose opening line is; "Once upon a time there was a girl who was special." could claim my heart and leave me speechless.
I thought this was a book to pass the time with, something tha More...

5 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 15, 2011

Flannery rated it:

Ultraviolet is a genre-bender, there’s no doubt about it, and I don’t think I’ve been this surprised about the direction a book took in quite some time. What I find particularly intriguing is the fact that all of us who’ve read it seem equally stumped as to how to write a review of a book whilst still leaving out half of the plot so as to preserve the experience for other readers--talk about a mighty task. When I originally wrote a placeholder for this review, it basically just said that I wish More...

38 comments like (41 people liked it)

Jul 27, 2011

Laura Lulu rated it:

4.5 stars

Wow. Really cool book. I don't know where to begin. I feel like anything I write in this review will be a bit of a spoiler in one way or another, so I'll try to be vague.

The story is told in first person from the POV of Alison, a 16 year old girl who can see sounds and smell emotions and taste lies. Numbers each have a color, names have a personality, and the stars make music. And she has hidden this extra side of herself since she was 6 years old and shared it w More...

20 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 23, 2012

Dawn rated it:

I really enjoyed this book. The reader is drawn to the heroine despite her strange and desperate situation. I applaud her courage as she struggles to find the truth and to do what is right. In this story, the author helps the reader feel what it might be like to be mentally ill or to fear that you are. The view from inside a mental hospital for teens feels very real. The people are real and complex and not so different from me and you. I appreciated the author's blend of empathy and clear- More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jun 11, 2011

Catie rated it:

3 1/2 stars

Raise your hand if you’ve ever read a passage like this in a young adult novel:

”Comet trails of indigo and violet streaked through my inner vision, and electricity sparked all over my skin. Our breaths mingled, quick and shallow, while my lips melted open and the blood pounded through me in a pleasure so intense it was only a shade away from pain.”

Now raise your hand if you’ve ever given yourself eye strain from frequent eye rolling at passages lik More...

15 comments like (15 people liked it)

Apr 24, 2011

Julie rated it:

Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson is dark whirl of excitement. Trapped in a mental institution, and tortured by her own mind, Alison refuses to accept defeat. Her mother doesn't want her, her father won't stand up for her, and the entire community, including Alison, believes she's guilty of murder.

Chapter after chapter Anderson delves deeper into the world of mental instability, creating characters to love and to fear. All the while, we're drawn to Alison, hating her injustice and tearing More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jul 04, 2011

Yolanda rated it:

I have to admit that this concept grabbed me from the moment I read the blurb.

Alison is a little withdrawn and really only has one friend. She doesn't trust people easily and has an amazing extra-sensory ability she tries to hide from others. She also has a nemesis--a popular, beautiful girl who seems to want to sabotage her every step of the way and bears a strange mark on her arm.

So the afternoon Alison gets into a fight with Tori after detention, and the popular girl More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2012

Rayne rated it:

-_- I need to think this one through, but I think it is, at the very least, a 3.5. I loved it so much, but the super plot twist kind of ruined it a little bit for me.
First 80% : Amazing! Well on its way to the Favorites shelf.
Next 4%: O_O Please tell me you are kidding.
Following 15%: Oh God. You are not kidding.
Last 1%: This is me, pretending none of that happened.

I'll review it...someday.

7 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 18, 2011

Reynje rated it:

I have fallen a little in love with this book, and honestly, I could not be more surprised.

I picked up and put down Ultraviolet countless times (mostly because I have a Bowerbird-esque tendency to be drawn to shiny, coloured things), convinced that I had no intention of looking beyond the metallic cover and actually reading it. But after coming across positive review after positive review, on a whim (*cough* book buying frenzy *cough*) I bought it.

Much has been made of More...

12 comments like (13 people liked it)

Aug 07, 2011

Eden rated it:

The cover:

It's not flat-out gorgeous, but all that violet totally lives up to the title. The various nuances in the hues and all the shadows make for an appealing eyefeast, and OMG. That tagline.

The book:

This was the weirdest mash of sci-fi and paranormal. The blurb said "genre-bending", but I wouldn't exactly call it that; it's more like the various elements were almost the same, but didn't mesh perfectly. It actually didn't detract from the novel, though More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 10, 2011

Jessie (Ageless Pages Reviews) rated it:

4.5 out of 5, honestly. A copy was provided for review from NetGalley.

This uniquely imaginative and intelligent novel was a terrifically melded blend of mystery, science fiction, fantasy and young-adult genres. Told through the eyes and life of Alison Jeffries, a seventeen year old girl, Alison is both a very unreliable narrator and a hugely sympathetic character. R.J. Anderson truly achieved the voice, and attitude of a sullen, hurting young woman. Alison is a living, breathing, three More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 28, 2011

Michelle rated it:

Posted on Book Chelle.

I must say, this is one of the most well written books that I have read in a really long time. It grabs you and takes you in like no other book you've read in a while. Ultraviolet had me thinking about the story non-stop since I started to read it. Anderson wrote so well that her characters and story had me compelled to write about it right away. I usually like to wait a little while until I write the review, but not for Ultraviolet.

Alison Jeffries More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 04, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

Ultraviolet is a very colourful novel. It is in the descriptions, the title and all due to the fact that Alison has synaesthesia (or synesthesia). I’d heard of it before but I didn’t know too much about it and it made Alison a more interesting character and so the descriptions that R J Anderson used when writing the book were filled with colourful images that spoke to me through the pages.
Ultraviolet is a book I have been obsessing over since I saw the cover and read the description for. More...

6 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2011

S. Bell rated it:

For the first three quarters of the book, I was totally ready to give this five stars. I've been looking forward to reading it for ages now, and the cover is absolutely gorgeous: double whammy! And it was seriously fascinating. I'd never heard of synesthesia before hearing about the book. I love how it came across as almost a super-power at times! I also found it really interesting how the first nine chapters all had colours associated to their numbers and how I knew what colour belonged to whic More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Cinnamon rated it:

This review may also be found on A Thousand Little Pages.

This novel is the winner of my created-just-for-the-occasion 2011 WTF award. This WTF has a positive connotation, and I like how it shaped -- more like attacked and mauled -- the ending. I can even say that I saw the WTF coming due to obscure foreshadowing, but the surprise was still WTF-worthy. Thus was the extent of the WTF-ness of Ultraviolet.

WTF (saying it again just for good measure).

Ultraviolet must take More...

9 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 22, 2011

Angela rated it:

Ultraviolet is a paranormal, sci-fi mystery with a hint of romance that is the coming-of-age story of a sixteen (going on seventeen) year old girl who believes she has killed one of her classmates and finds herself in a mental hospital. Set in Canada, this contemporary fiction has a beautiful setting, interesting characters, and unforeseen plot twists that will leave you wondering what the heck is going on in a delightful way.

The story does start off a little slow with a tad too much More...

5 comments like (3 people liked it)