Book Review: Enlightened

Title: Enlightened

Author: A L Waddington

Genre: YA Fantasy

Reviewer: Aly

Book Blurb: 

The barrier between Jocelyn Timmons consciousness continues to dissolve as she better understands the two lives she lives and enormity of her newly discovered inherited gift of EVE (Essence Voyager Era) which allows her to fall asleep on one plane of existence and awaken on another as her soul travels nightly.

Present-day Jocelyn uncovers the vast wonderment of the Victorian era but soon learns that life then was not as grand for women as she has read in the classics. Still, she finds comfort in the support of family and friends; a bolstering contrast to her overly hectic, career-oriented family in the twenty-first century. Her love for Jackson Chandler strengthens across time and becomes the light she so desperately needs as the world she has always known no longer makes sense. Yet, the closer she is drawn to Jackson by their mutual ability, the more strain develops amongst those she loves in 2009. 

On the other side of Jocelyn’s consciousness in 1878, she remains ignorant of EVE. Her life is crumbling around her, yet she finds herself anxiously awaiting the images that invade her dreams. Jocelyn longs to be the woman she portrays in that world yet her jealousy is unbearable. Miscommunication, betrayal and hidden agendas make trust near impossible. The clearer the visions become the more she questions motives of her closest confidants and foregoes revealing the images that plague her perception. As her life seems to unravel, Jocelyn’s two worlds collide, and she is enlightened as the pieces start to fall into place. But is she strong enough to survive the truth? Is Jackson really her destiny? And can their love transcend time? Find out in Essence’s highly anticipated sequel, Enlightened, Book 2, EVE series.

Review:

Enlightened starts out with a prologue, which pretty much goes over what happened in the previous book just not in detail. This could be beneficial if it’s been a while since you’ve read Essence but at the same time if you’ve already read the previous book just before diving into Enlightened it might not capture your attention as fully.

It was much easier for me to be drawn into Enlightened, probably because I was more familiar with the characters and the biggest mystery of what was happening had already been solved. Enlightened was more focused on the difficulties the characters faced, specifically Jocelyn in dealing with this EVE. And wow, it really was far from easy. I kept reading and it just seemed that things kept getting more difficult instead of being easier. It really brought me closer to Jocelyn to see her struggling so much and I felt myself cheering for her much more in this book.

Then there were the interactions between the characters. Now that Jackson and Jocelyn can touch without causing her fainting, I just wanted to sigh over their interactions. They were so sweet. And yet not all was well in romanceland, and the happiness is quickly taken out of the relationship. It had me to the point of tears, and almost ready to sell my soul to the devil so that Jocelyn wouldn’t do what she was planning to and praying that they would work everything out.

Then there’s the fact that Jocelyn’s family for the most part is far from supportive for most of the book. This probably helped me feel even more sympathy for Jocelyn and cheer her on. But I do have to mention that there’s such a stigma on getting married young that I had a creeped out, scared, ready to bolt reaction to Jocelyn and Jackson contemplating that path. So I think that that stigma is particularly deep. And the fact that A.L. Waddington touched on it, definitely brought that to the forefront of my mind.

And then there was the ending. It left me curious about how everything would work out especially with Jocelyn and her family. No lies, I did read the preview of the next book, and could not believe what I was reading. I will certainly be adding the third book in this series to my TBR list and keeping an eye out for it.

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Book Review: Essence

Title: Essence

Author: A L Waddington

Genre: YA Fantasy

Reviewer: Aly

Book Blurb:

Jocelyn Timmons does not believe she is anything special — just an ordinary high school senior, living an ordinary life full of school-work, volleyball and friends. She’s about to find out how wrong she is.

Jackson Chandler moved in to the house across the street. His dark wavy hair, green eyes and charismatic personality draws everyone to him. Everyone, but Jocelyn.

Whenever Jackson gets near Jocelyn she feels ill and dizzy. When he touches her, she blacks out and has visions of another life, in another time. As the odd hallucinations evolve and become clearer, she feels a strong pull towards the people she sees there. Frightened, she watches her once stable life begin to crumble around her and she begins to question her own sanity.

Could it be possible that these episodes are actually her own memories of a life she is living somehow, somewhere, some-when? Maybe this is time-travel or some other paranormal mysticism? Our minds often wander, but can our souls?

Review:

The writing was good in this novel but I also found that it took me a while to get into this book. I wasn’t hooked right from the beginning and that occasionally made things a little more difficult. But once I was into the book it became all I could do to put it down and sleep or study. The plot is certainly unique. I don’t think I’ve ever read of something like this and that added to the story.

The frustrating thing about Essence is how long it takes to get an explanation for why she’s fainting around Jackson and seeing this other life. It made me want to read on, definitely but at the same time I was just growing annoyed with the fact that we didn’t get any answers until later in the book. 

This approach did give me time to slip into the book a bit more deeply as well as learning about the two main characters, Jocelyn and Jackson. The book is told from Jocelyn’s perspective, both present and past and this adds to the confusion about what is going on because you’re not only feeling her confusion but also yours as well. Not to mention you also felt the emotions of Jocelyn which just made you find it in your heart to love Jackson, even though you know he knows what’s going on and you just want to shake him down for answers. (True story. If I could have I would have.)

While Essence didn’t hook me right from the beginning it was a unique story, and one that will have you trying to think of any explanation that you can to satisfy your curiosity. Which can actually be fun because you come up with the weirdest things ever but the actual explanation when it comes is something that you would probably never really guess. It was a good book, one that I enjoyed.

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