Linked

Mar 14, 2012 geekgirl marked it as to-read

Shelves: cover-watch

Okay, officially in love with this cover. Please join me in swooning.

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Mar 22, 2013 YA Reads Book Reviews rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nichole

Originally posted on www.yareads.com, reviewed by Nichole.

Elissa's world for the past three years has been a nightmare. She's experienced horrific pain, random bruising all over her body, blackouts, nausea, and numerous other symptoms that have beat up her body and left her feeling close to death. Over the past three years, Elissa has seen doctor after doctor, and they finally found a cure: brain surgery. The doctors have guaranteed Elissa that this surgery will remove all of the symptoms she's...more

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May 03, 2013 BookHookup rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was originally reviewed on The Book Hookup.

An ARC was received from Simon and Schuster but that did not influence the review**

First Thoughts: WOA!! That was crazy and I loved it!! Much of the setting was in outer space, but please, please, please don’t let that deter you. It was outstanding!

The Story: Elissa has been having hallucinations for years as well as bruises that mysteriously appear. No treatment has been successful so far so she finally consents to brain surgery. However, Eli...more This book was originally reviewed on The Book Hookup.

An ARC was received from Simon and Schuster but that did not influence the review**

First Thoughts: WOA!! That was crazy and I loved it!! Much of the setting was in outer space, but please, please, please don’t let that deter you. It was outstanding!

The Story: Elissa has been having hallucinations for years as well as bruises that mysteriously appear. No treatment has been successful so far so she finally consents to brain surgery. However, Elissa finds out the real reason she has been having the visions….she has been seeing them through another girl’s eyes. She has a twin that she never knew existed. However, it’s not as simple as that, and once the government finds out that Elissa knows of her twin’s existence all hell breaks loose. This is the story of the girls’ escape. And boy oh boy, what a story it is.

Elissa: She goes from a passenger in her life to the driver and I loved it! She went from depression (due to her mental issues) to a leader. She stepped up to the challenge in so many ways.

Other characters: Lin and Caden were the other major players in this novel. I loved the progression of Lin and the fierce loyalty she had towards Elissa. Caden, oh le sigh. I liked him from the beginning even though he was a little full of himself. He was a total rule follower, except when he knew it was wrong. On top of that Caden was so cool under pressure, which is so very, VERY attractive. The other two characters that really stand out to me are Elissa’s parents. I hated her mother and respected her father. I don’t know if she could really ever forgive her mother.

The romance: Slow, slow, slow burn. There wasn’t really time for a romance, but what we did get was great. When love was professed at the end, I was kind of like, woa, too fast, but then again they thought they would die. I would really love to see more of the romance play out without the serious threat of the government hanging over them.

Twists and Turns: None really, but the entire story was intense. I do enjoy a good double-crossing but that was not the case here. However, there were loads and loads of dirty secrets that were uncovered as the story moved along.

Gripes: Sometimes I felt like some emotions only scratched the surface. I know there was so much to fit in, but a teensy bit longer for the romantic scene would have been great. (What can I say, I am a massive sucker for romance.) Also, the angriest Caden ever got was to swear under his breath. Honestly, in the situation they were in it would have been ok for a few f-bombs to drop. However, I can respect that the book was clean…I would have just liked to see it all rather than just know he was saying some expletives. Basically, I’m nit picking here.

The Cover: Gorgeous!!

The ending: Genius. I could slightly sense what might happen but it was better than I imagined it to turn out. I could not turn the pages fast enough. Not a cliff hanger and I assumed this was actually a stand alone novel. However, on Ms. Howson’s website she is already working on a sequel, Shattered. I can’t wait to see what she has in store for us!

Rec it? Absolutely.(less)

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Apr 10, 2013 Michelle rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: EVERYONE

Picked up this book last night at midnight, finished it at midnight the following day - this is an intense page turner book. A book that the author, Imogen Howson, has creatively woven an original, enticing, spell-binding world that got me hooked from start to finish. The story is so beautifully written that I just want more more more of this richly crafted sci-fi world. From plot, to plot twist, to characters and the NONSTOP EPIC ACTION scenes will surely entertain the readers as much as it has...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Dark Faerie Tales rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed-by-bridget

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: Very intense interesting story with some great twists.

Opening Sentence: As Elissa and her mother entered the waiting room, the sky above Central Canyon City was a chill, pre-dawn gray, the spaceport a colorless blaze on the horizon.

The Review:

Elissa would do anything to make her hallucinations so away. Elissa is a 17 year old girl and for about 3 years now she has been having vivid hallucinations that are painful and leave bruises all over h...more

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Apr 02, 2013 Patty rated it 5 of 5 stars

Linked
By
Imogene Howsen

My" in a nutshell" summary...

Visions, a twin sister you didn't know you had...and you both are on the run from the bad guys...yum!

My thoughts after reading this book...

Hmmm...

Love Dystopian novels...this one is superb. Elissa lives on Sekoia...a technically advanced planet. It has a low crime rate. People are relatively content and happy. Elissa tries to be but she suffers from weird visions that leave her bruised and confused. She has rigid parents and a near perfect broth...more

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May 20, 2013 Jacqueline The Everyday Shopaholic is currently reading it

Shelves: arc

Just got my ARC in the mail! Starting it now... :D

Elissa used to have it all: looks, popularity, and a bright future. But for the last three years, she’s been struggling with terrifying visions, phantom pains, and mysterious bruises that appear out of nowhere.

Finally, she’s promised a cure: minor surgery to burn out the overactive area of her brain. But on the eve of the procedure, she discovers the shocking truth behind her hallucinations: she’s been seeing the world through another girl’s ey...more

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Jul 23, 2012 Kilikina marked it as to-read

Shelves: 2013

Love this cover!!

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Mar 23, 2013 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, better-than-i-thought-it-would-be, bizarre, cover-love, edelweiss, female-pov, futuristic, galley, in-space, likeable-characters, reviewcopies, romance, science-fiction, ya

Linked
I thought I knew what Linked was about before I started. I have ideas about Bourne and political thrillers, I thought the two main characters would be slumming it and trying to bring down a corrupt and mean government. I have seen it before and it is a format I like do I was looking forward to reading Linked. The moral of the story is not to assume you know what is going on before you do because this book took me somewhere I was not expecting to go. It took me to space…literally.

WOW, I was...more Linked
I thought I knew what Linked was about before I started. I have ideas about Bourne and political thrillers, I thought the two main characters would be slumming it and trying to bring down a corrupt and mean government. I have seen it before and it is a format I like do I was looking forward to reading Linked. The moral of the story is not to assume you know what is going on before you do because this book took me somewhere I was not expecting to go. It took me to space…literally.

WOW, I was not expecting that and I read the rest of the book with a general air of WTF! I have to admit that I had issues with this one, issues that I will get to in a moment but overall I was pretty impressed with it. Sometimes it doesn’t matter if a book has inconsistences’ or problems not to me anyway. All I want from a book is to be entertained and to be dragged head first into another world. A book does not have to be perfect it has to engage me and that is exactly what Linked did.

So, let’s start with the stuff I liked. I thought the idea was really ambitions and I thought it worked really well. Surprising your reader is often a good thing but if the author doesn’t completely get behind her brave and bizarre plot twists then it doesn’t work, that was not the case here Howson owned her (at times) slightly unbelievable storyline and because she did it worked. Another thing that really made this book work was the developing relationship between Elissa and her twin Lin. It really goes the distance starting with disbelief and distrust and tending in respect and true sisterly love. There is a romance here and it was rather brilliantly underplayed which allowed the sister relationship to really shine through but still provided me with a smidge of romance which I am a sucker for.

The pacing was great; it didn’t hang around and linger on unneeded detail or drama. It did what it needed to do and then moved on without feeling sparse or rushed. The main bulk of the book takes place in space which was a really good move because that was where the book got really interesting.

Despite all the things I loved about this there were things I disliked just as much. I have an issue with books that are written in third person and rely on pages after pages of italic ‘thoughts’ of the main character. If we needed to know what she was thinking all the time then maybe she should have told the story from her point of view. I just found the italics really distracting and felt they always seemed to happen at the wrong time. I had to be shoved out of a book and that is what happened here. What didn’t help was that the italic ‘thoughts’ showed how horrible, selfish and mean spirited the main character, Elissa, could be. Most of the time I liked her but these little journey’s into her mind showed her not to be the sweet and selfless person to seemed to be. Frankly, she can be horrible and some of her selfish and thoughts about her sister were disgusting, especially considering all Lin (whom I much preferred even though she was a bit primal) had been through. It showed that Elissa was immature and bitchy and it made me dislike her.
(less)

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Feb 25, 2013 Ally rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult, arcs, debuts, fiction, luckies, scifi

Linked is the story of Elissa, who has been struggling for the past three years with terrifying visions, awful headaches, and mysteriously appearing bruises. The doctors are promising a new miracle cure--they will simply go in and burn out the overactive part of her brain. But right before the surgery, she finds out that she's been seeing the world through the eyes of another girl: a girl who looks exactly like she does. All of a sudden, she's faced with Lin--the twin she never knew she had. And...more

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May 03, 2013 Celeste rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, dystopian, simon-and-schuster, sci-fi, e-galley, aliens, arc

This book was originally reviewed on The Book Hookup.

An ARC was received from Simon and Schuster but that did not influence the review**

First Thoughts: WOA!! That was crazy and I loved it!! Much of the setting was in outer space, but please, please, please don’t let that deter you. It was outstanding!

The Story: Elissa has been having hallucinations for years as well as bruises that mysteriously appear. No treatment has been successful so far so she finally consents to brain surgery. However, Eli...more This book was originally reviewed on The Book Hookup.

An ARC was received from Simon and Schuster but that did not influence the review**

First Thoughts: WOA!! That was crazy and I loved it!! Much of the setting was in outer space, but please, please, please don’t let that deter you. It was outstanding!

The Story: Elissa has been having hallucinations for years as well as bruises that mysteriously appear. No treatment has been successful so far so she finally consents to brain surgery. However, Elissa finds out the real reason she has been having the visions….she has been seeing them through another girl’s eyes. She has a twin that she never knew existed. However, it’s not as simple as that, and once the government finds out that Elissa knows of her twin’s existence all hell breaks loose. This is the story of the girls’ escape. And boy oh boy, what a story it is.

Elissa: She goes from a passenger in her life to the driver and I loved it! She went from depression (due to her mental issues) to a leader. She stepped up to the challenge in so many ways.

Other characters: Lin and Caden were the other major players in this novel. I loved the progression of Lin and the fierce loyalty she had towards Elissa. Caden, oh le sigh. I liked him from the beginning even though he was a little full of himself. He was a total rule follower, except when he knew it was wrong. On top of that Caden was so cool under pressure, which is so very, VERY attractive. The other two characters that really stand out to me are Elissa’s parents. I hated her mother and respected her father. I don’t know if she could really ever forgive her mother.

The romance: Slow, slow, slow burn. There wasn’t really time for a romance, but what we did get was great. When love was professed at the end, I was kind of like, woa, too fast, but then again they thought they would die. I would really love to see more of the romance play out without the serious threat of the government hanging over them.

Twists and Turns: None really, but the entire story was intense. I do enjoy a good double-crossing but that was not the case here. However, there were loads and loads of dirty secrets that were uncovered as the story moved along.

Gripes: Sometimes I felt like some emotions only scratched the surface. I know there was so much to fit in, but a teensy bit longer for the romantic scene would have been great. (What can I say, I am a massive sucker for romance.) Also, the angriest Caden ever got was to swear under his breath. Honestly, in the situation they were in it would have been ok for a few f-bombs to drop. However, I can respect that the book was clean…I would have just liked to see it all rather than just know he was saying some expletives. Basically, I’m nit picking here.

The Cover: Gorgeous!!

The ending: Genius. I could slightly sense what might happen but it was better than I imagined it to turn out. I could not turn the pages fast enough. Not a cliff hanger and I assumed this was actually a stand alone novel. However, on Ms. Howson’s website she is already working on a sequel, Shattered. I can’t wait to see what she has in store for us!

Rec it? Absolutely.(less)

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Feb 11, 2013 Claire Caterer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult, books-of-2013

Lovers of sci-fi and suspense will get lost in Imogen Howson's debut. From the first page, the reader is drawn into Lissa Ivory's strange affliction: constant headaches and fits of searing pain that doctors can't--or won't--fully explain to her. But soon Lissa discovers that her symptoms are linked to those of a girl she never knew existed: her twin. That's when the running begins.

A Doctor Who companion once described their adventures as "an awful lot of running," and that's what we see in Howso...more

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Mar 17, 2013 Katie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013

Imogen Howson's Linked is a solid three star YA dystopian science fiction novel which would likely make a better film. I'm afraid that too much plot description will give away things not meant to be given away off the bat, but the story features a teenage girl who must learn to question her parents and even the very government of her planet. It's an interesting enough, though predictable, story; I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either - hence the solid three star review.

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Jan 30, 2013 Demitria Lunetta rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended for fans of: YA Sci-fi

I love me some YA sci-fi, and this was had everything a geek girl like me could want! Futuristic? Check. Space ships? Check. Kick-ass heroine? Double Check. The world-building was fantastic, I loved the back-story that Howson wove throughout. The pacing was great, propelling you through the pages. I like how LINKED had not one, but two characters that grow throughout the story. The plot twists and turns will keep you hooked. I also like the bigger issues the boo...more

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Sep 16, 2012 Jax rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: for-review

It's a bit nerve wracking when you pick up a book by someone you know. Actually really know. Are friends with. What if you don't like it? What if it's really awful?

Fortunately, this book is really good. Futuristic worlds, ethical issues, a little romance, some science, it's all tangled in there together, in a breathless adventure that charges along. I love the ideas, the imagery, the language. And (no pressure at all) I can't wait for the sequel.

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Oct 15, 2012 Karl rated it 3 of 5 stars

The story itself was fine. I wasn't blown away by its inventiveness, originality, or any such thing, but it was OK. I did appreciate the authors attention to small details. How futuristic technology would translate into day to day lives. I thought that created a much more believable world, and as such, the story was better than it could have been.

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Oct 30, 2012 Danielle marked it as to-read

Shelves: ya-fiction, fantasy

Stole this off Isis' to read shelf. Sounds great - from a review on this site: "Futuristic worlds, ethical issues, a little romance, some science, it's all tangled in there together, in a breathless adventure that charges along." (Though I'm finding that pre-publication reviews should be taken with a grain of salt.) Not due out until June 2012.

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Apr 25, 2013 Imogen H rated it 5 of 5 stars

Omdl, I LOVED this book so much!!!
It took me a bit to get into it, but I actually read it all in one night...then started it again. lol
The consept is amazing, and you really cant put it down because you want to know everything.

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Dec 08, 2012 Christina Wilder marked it as to-read

Shelves: looks-really-awesome, ya, order-for-library

The cover is bizarre, but a) it's eye-catching, and b) it's not like every other YA cover with a female protagonist out there (pretty girl, pretty dress, very dark or vividly bright background).

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Oct 28, 2012 C.J. Flood rated it 5 of 5 stars

Such an exciting book. I was hooked from start to finish. Since putting it down, I have really missed Elissa and the world she inhabits. Desperate to read the sequel!

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Feb 05, 2013 Farrah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Started off slow, but turned out to be fantastic!
Review to come

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May 08, 2013 Katelyn Debrabant marked it as to-read

Looks amazing! A must read! Would love to win!!!

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Apr 30, 2013 Charli marked it as to-read

Shelves: for-review, upcoming-review, teen, speculative

for professional review

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Oct 18, 2012 Nicole marked it as to-read

Shelves: wishlist

This sounds wicked good.

1 like · like · see review

Oct 05, 2012 Max marked it as to-read

10/5/12
THIS COVER..........

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Jan 29, 2013 Bre marked it as to-read

I didn't like it...

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Jul 17, 2012 Elissa Hinojosa marked it as to-read

MY NAME! AHHHH! So reading this.

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Apr 01, 2013 Jodi Meadows rated it 5 of 5 stars

Loved it!

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Nov 28, 2012 E.C. Newman rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopia, teen, romantic

Read this as a manuscript for a lit scout. This is more 3.5 stars. If people can get past the space stuff (I find that to be not usual genre for girls and this is def a girls book) I think it was good.

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Apr 15, 2013 Bridget rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book it was a very intense interesting story with some great twists. For full review visit Dark Faerie Tales: http://darkfaerietales.com/early-revi...

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title link	preview: Linked
avg rating	preview: Linked Goodreads rating: 4.05 (127 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14999965-linked?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1350302061l/14999965.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14999965-linked?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Linked by Imogen Howson[/url]

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