Manifest (Mystyx, #1) in Multiculturalism in YA,Fantasy, Sci FI,Paranormal and fun books ;p

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Nov 09, 2010 The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears rated it liked it

Shelves: genre-ya-fiction, poc-on-the-covers

I really wanted to like this book. I really did. The fact that there’s so few characters of color in the YA paranormal genre made me pick this book up with no hesitation.

After I finished it, I felt Manifest didn't.

I never thought I’d ever read another heroine more annoying than Bella Swann of Twilight. Well Bella, meet Krystal Bentley. Whiny, self-absorbed and major bad attitude bar none doesn’t even begin to describe this guest to her own personal pity party. I’m sorry that sounds harsh, but I I really wanted to like this book. I really did. The fact that there’s so few characters of color in the YA paranormal genre made me pick this book up with no hesitation.

After I finished it, I felt Manifest didn't.

I never thought I’d ever read another heroine more annoying than Bella Swann of Twilight. Well Bella, meet Krystal Bentley. Whiny, self-absorbed and major bad attitude bar none doesn’t even begin to describe this guest to her own personal pity party. I’m sorry that sounds harsh, but I make no apologies for preferring my heroines to be fearless and strong, especially in this genre. Okay, she’s been uprooted to a new school, she hates her stepfather and her real father has gone off and started a brand new life without her (on top of having cheated on her mother). The only good thing is that Krystal doesn't have a stalker vampire/boyfriend. Maybe that's a good thing, because after being around her for one hour, he'd probably stake himself.

And that’s something else that bothered me. Why did this author choose to write about another dysfunctional family situation, especially considering the target market for books like this? My guess is that Krystal’s family life (or lack thereof) would give her a reason to behave ‘like a teenager’, but it just wasn’t necessary considering that she already had issues with seeing dead people. That alone would be enough to cause angst in the most normal teen.

We get it, after about half the book, Krystal's upset about her life. Get over it!

The saving grace of this novel was Ricky Watson, the dead teenager who seeks Krystal’s help to clear his brother and friends of his murder. In spite of being dead, he was the liveliest and most fully-fleshed character and I was far more emotionally invested in his happy ending than Krystal's. It was worth the price of the book when Ricky chastised her for her snotty, selfish attitude. Normally I don't have an issue with first person narratives, but Krystal just wasn't interesting enough to maintain any sort of connection. Definitely a case of telling and not showing. The other characters--Sascha, Jake, Frederick--there's just no sense of who they are, although Sascha and Jake also have mysterious birthmarks and powers.

On the plus side, the author gave Krystal paranormal powers, rather than the typical "heroine meets someone of the paranormal persuasion". I was hoping that after a few pages of “woe is me” (which is all I can tolerate), Krystal would start to embrace the adventure of her talents and grow annd start solving this rather dark mystery. And that's another issue--the mystery seemed to be put together as an afterthought. None of the Mystyx characters do anything 'detective-like' such as finding clues. It seemed as if whatever clues there were, just happened to find them.

Having said all this, I'm interested to see where Ms. Arthur takes the rest of the Mystyx series. It's got a lot of potential and it's nice to read about heroines who have powers in their own right. ...more

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Mar 26, 2010 CaliGirlRae rated it it was ok

Shelves: dnf, paranormal, young-adult, covers-that-rock, netgalley

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Aug 21, 2012 Julia marked it as to-read

Shelves: author-poc

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