YA Novel Pulse Lacks a Pulse
I have spent a fair bit of time reading YA novels lately — particularly books in alternate versions of our world, dystopian, and post-apocalyptic. Not all of them were great. Some of them were phenomenal. But only two of them actually turned me off to the series and the author.
Pulse, by Patrick Carman, is one of those two, joining ranks with Uninvited, but Sophie Jordan. I won’t even write my own summary. Here’s what Amazon says:
“In the year 2051, who has a pulse?
With the help of her mysterious classmate Dylan Gilmore, Faith Daniels discovers that she can move objects with her mind. This telekinetic ability is called a “pulse,” and Dylan has the talent, too.
In riveting action scenes, Faith demonstrates her ability to use her pulse against a group of telekinesis masters so powerful they will flatten their enemies by uprooting streetlights, throwing boulders, and changing the course of a hurtling hammer so that it becomes a deadly weapon. But in order to save the world, Faith will have to harness not only the power of her mind, but the power of her heart, too.
Patrick Carman’s Pulse trilogy is a stunning and epic triumph about the power of the mind—and of love.”
No. The book was neither stunning, epic, triumphant, powerful, or showed any signs of love.
Before I go too far into everything else wrong with the book, I feel it’s important to point out that Pulse is one of the worst point-of-view hopping novels I have EVER read. Literally, from one paragraph to the next we can be in the heads of everyone in the scene — whether that’s two people or five. It also makes me feel like entrenched authors who make the New York Times list (for who knows what after reading this book) can publish books no matter how poor the quality, as if their editors just don’t care anymore because they just want to sell more books. Aspiring authors and those who haven’t made that prestigious list could never get away with writing something this bad. Mini-rant over.
The pacing of this book is so slow I nearly gave up halfway through. Yes, halfway. I pushed myself that far and the plot still wasn’t really going anywhere. I won’t read the other books, but I would bet that they can all be condensed into just one book (assuming they are paced as poorly as this one).
It’s important to understand that a lot of this book just establishes the world and shows Faith hanging out with her friend Liz or getting used by the a-typical slimy jocky-type guy. Nothing about Faith’s character feels compelling or strong. She gets sassy, sure, but much in the way any teenage girl does. Sass doesn’t make a person strong.
Aside from showing a flair for Faith being sassy and full-on rude to people who don’t always deserve it, she has not just one stalker, but three. Two of them — Dylan and Hawk — actually watch her sleeping. And not once, but every single night. They watch her and track her and sleep in her bed (with her permission, sure, but after being caught watching her outside her window, which is creepy and wrong on its own).
The world is interesting and overdeveloped, but the characters fall flat and border on restraining-order level obsession with Faith. And she takes it all in stride, accepting the way they watch her, follow her, and obsess about hanging out with her.
Most importantly — and I mean this from the bottom of my very soul — Pulse glorifies obsessive, poor behavior for men, as well as making it seem like girls should be okay with that behavior.
Everything about this book lacks a pulse. Can I have my money and time back?
