Darwin’s Children by Natasha Larry
Pages: 262
Publication Date: June 28th 2011 by Penumbra Publishing
Age Group: YA
Source: Author
Series: Darwin’s Children #1
Challenge(s): Ebook challenge, Young adult reading challenge, 150+ reading challenge
Summary(from Goodreads):
Life can get pretty complicated for any seventeen-year-old girl, but for a home-schooled telepathic black girl trying to survive in a prestigious private school in small-town Jonesborough, Tennessee, it can be maddening; especially when her telepathic father keeps eavesdropping on her thoughts!
Jaycie Lerner’s family isn’t the usual mom-dad-kid setup. Jaycie’s mom is MIA, but Allison, her personal live-in trainer, is more than a mom, with her own special abilities, like being able to lift cars and run incredibly fast. And Jaycie’s godfather John is more than persuasive; he can literally convince anyone to do anything.
As far as the rest of the world’s concerned, Jaycie’s on the outside looking in. The townsfolk love Jaycie’s paediatrician father, but she doesn’t fit in with “normal” kids, and she doesn’t really want to. Most of her free time is spent training to keep her telekinetic and telepathic powers under control. But there’s one thing she can’t control; and that’s her feelings, especially when her best friend Matt is nearby. If only he knew what she was truly capable of…
Everything seems to be status quo for Jaycie until she receives a cryptic message from a stranger and meets a very unusual girl new to Jonesborough. Then all hell breaks loose!
| I liked this book. I think that Jaycie is an awesome main character and her powers are so cool! She is super nice and is described as beyond beautiful, but don’t start thinking her life is too perfect. Basically everyone at school dislikes her and she has to keep her powers a secret from her best friend, Matt. I liked that she was not too perfect- she still has struggles to go through and her powers are not just easy breezy fun. I was interested to see how her powers would progress and to see what would happen. I was also really interested in Jaycie and Matt. He is just so sweet and cute, how could you not like Matt? I just wanted Jaycie to tell Matt about her powers right away.
Other than Jaycie’s powers developing and Matt, the story did not hold my attention for the entire book. I was really into the book for the first 1/3 of it. I blew through that part, but then it started to drag a bit for me. I thought that it was slow in places. The storyline really interested me and I kept reading because I really wanted to find out what was going to happen, but I wasn’t as absorbed in the book as I wanted to be. I caught myself skimming the page more than a few times. I did really like the descriptions of the characters in the books. Everyone was really well described, even the minor ones. I enjoyed that because it helped me picture them, and normally with minor characters I just read their scene and then put them out of my mind. I thought this extra attention to detail was a nice touch. Another thing I noticed was that Jaycie got pretty violent towards the end of the book. She seemed so nice and kind, and then all of a sudden she was so focused on retribution and revenge. It seemed kind of out of place for her. I liked the resolution to the conflict but it was very much an eye for an eye philosophy, so beware about that. Overall, Darwin’s Children was a good book. I enjoyed the plot and I’m going to read the next one because I want to know what is going to happen, but I didn’t fall in love with the book. I just kind of liked it, no strong feelings. Maybe now that the groundwork is laid, book 2 will pick up a little. I look forward to finding out.
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If you would like to see another review of this book, check out Avery’s @ Avery’s Book Nook. She loved the book! 🙂 You can see her review here.
If any of you have read this book, please let me know what you thought of it in the comments below.
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I received both of the books in this series from a contest I won on another site. I’m glad to know the story is at least interesting. I’ll have to give them a go sometime soon. I’m sorry it dragged for you in the middle, but hopefully since the foundation has been laid with book one, the rest of the series will keep your attention better. Thanks for the review.
I’m all for books with telepathic abilities so I’ll have to look out for this one. Not sure how I will go with another too beautiful for words MC though!
Hopefully the next book will not drag and be more interesting from start to finish.