Hover
(The Taking, #2)
By: Melissa West
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Published: Aug. 13, 2013
Genre: Sci-Fi YA
Rating:
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On Earth, seventeen-year-old Ari Alexander was taught to never peek, but if she hopes to survive life on her new planet, Loge, her eyes must never shut. Because Zeus will do anything to save the Ancients from their dying planet, and he has a plan.
Thousands of humans crossed over to Loge after a poisonous neurotoxin released into Earth’s atmosphere, nearly killing them. They sought refuge in hopes of finding a new life, but what they became were slaves, built to wage war against their home planet. That is, unless Ari and Jackson can stop them. But on Loge, nothing is as it seems…and no one can be trusted.
This is a sequel to Gravity and you MUST read Gravity before reading this. You cannot just jump in and hope to catch up. It had been a while since I read Gravity and even I needed the refresher that the author gives when starting the book. It took me a little bit for me to get my bearings and to get back into the state of mind since Hover starts right where Gravity left off.
I don’t want to give too much away in my review but all I can say is that although this story isn’t as gruesome as the last, it still has a high level of suspense to it with a couple of shocking moments. Ari and Jackson are trying to beat the clock and keep a full blown war between the aliens and the humans from happening. New characters are introduced and are vital components to the story while we get glimpses from the secondary characters from the first book. So with everything that’s taking place, and the new characters that are thrown into the mix, there is a lot going on. I was never bored with the story of felt like the story lagged. The pacing of the story was brilliant.
I also like that we get a better look at Jackson who is still a mystery in this book. You start to peel back the layers that makes up his character. In the first book you think he’s this confident person, but it isn’t until you see him in his own element that you realize that it’s all just a mask that he wears. He’s really just a hurt, panicked, broken boy who’s been beaten down like a stray dog all of his life. So much is expected from him and so much is taken from him that he wears this mask to not only protect himself but protect the ones he loves.
The reason why I took away a star from this, and I may later change it when I reread a finished copy, is because the formatting was horrible. I was given an ARC by the publisher and words were missing or were off to the side of the page in a different paragraph. There were words that had overlapped each other leaving me to guess what it was supposed to say and if what I was reading was the same sentence or again, something that was from another paragraph in the story. And all of the “f” and “fi” in the entire book were missing. So for instance instead of “first”, I’d get “rst” or instead of effective I would read “eective”. I understand that this is an ARC and usually I let these mishaps slide under the radar because I know the book hasn’t been through the final wringer yet. However, the problems were so huge and disruptive to my reading that I couldn’t fully get into the story. Every sentence I was having to figure out what the author said. Maybe once the book is released I will revisit the book and will find myself more enveloped in the story, thus bringing this up to 5stars.
Will I continue with the series? Definitely. Melissa has a great voice when it comes to telling a story. She doesn’t add drama where drama isn’t needed just to keep the story interesting. However, be warned, she is a master at leaving you on the edge of your seat the entire time… even until the very last word.
“Then do me a favor. Try to imagine what it would be like to be petrified to think or act freely. Not just worries that you will disappoint, but literally afraid that you or someone you love would die if you ever thought or acted of your own accord. That has been Jackson’s life. So before you start judging him for not telling you who he is, maybe you should consider his motives and consider that perhaps, for someone like him, he put everything on the line for you too and you pushed him away.”
Previous reviews from The Taking
Gravity
Melissa lives in a tiny suburb of Atlanta, GA with her husband and daughters. She pretends to like yoga, actually likes shoes, and could not live without coffee. Her writing heroes include greats like Jane Austen and Madeleine L’Engle.
She holds a B.A. in Communication Studies and an M.S. in Graphic Communication, both from Clemson University. Yeah, her blood runs orange.GRAVITY is her first novel.
