Dalysian Hope
Author: Jamie Summer
Genre: YA Fantasy
Publication Date: March 20th, 2016
Book Description:
One night can change everything.
For seventeen-year-old Sophie Evans life is completely average. And she likes it that way.
Until one night, her apartment is attacked. Out of nowhere, creatures climb through her windows with only one goal in mind: to kill her. Only with the help of two handsome strangers and her next-door-neighbor does she make it out alive.
While the immediate danger is gone, Sophie finds herself thrown into a world she didn’t even knew existed — dealing with powers she knows nothing about and a race counting on her to save them.
How can she be the only hope of a race she never even knew existed? When pressure threatens to suffocate her, can Sophie fight the odds stacked against her, or will she lose herself in the process?
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MY REVIEW
Sophie Evans is your average teenager, living a normal life, until one day, the extraordinary happens. Sophie finds herself facing off with monstrous creatures. Aided by people with unusual abilities, she manages to get to safety. She doesn't know who to trust, particularly because no one is willing to share any information with her, so all she can do is trust those who swear to her that they're here to protect her from harm. But just what is it they're protecting her from and why is everyone so interested in an ordinary girl like Sophie Evans?
Dalysian Hope is a book that has the potential to drag you from your reality and whisk you off on an adventure of a lifetime; unfortunately, it lacked a certain configuration of identity, primarily on the basis of plot development, which ultimately affected the knowledge of the world being portrayed. Throughout reading the book, I often found myself becoming frustrated at the persistant hesitation to offer any form explanation to help draw the story out of its shell. I like a good mystery, but there wasn't much to work with. What I found most discouraging was not the fact that there were no answers to satisfy Sophie's inquisitive nature but that the characters kept saying they couldn't disclose anything to Sophie every single instance where she posed a question. That was the go-to answer for everything. It was just used too often.
Despite the lack of plot development, I did like the characters, especially Ren, the dark and mysterious love interest. Although I thought Sophie was a likeable character, she didn't drive the story. There was no push from her angle. She was clearly unsatisfied with no one providing her with any information, but she didn't pose any challenges to gain information. While residing at her family's holiday home, training for tests she knew nothing about, the story lagged, which I found disappointing as it kicked off with such a great start, full of mystery and suspense. It did pick up again towards the ending, but it took so long to get going that when it did, the story didn't fully captivate me.
Still, I found the book to have so much potential, and there were occassional moments that were so intriguing that I couldn't give up on the story. I needed to get to the end to find out where Sophie and her friends were going to end up. I fought so hard to love this story, and even though it didn't whisk me away, it did have enough impact on me to make me want to find out more. It's a good read. It just needs more consideration in certain areas to establish plot structure and progression.
VERDICT
Award: Silver
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
Source: Author
