Struck is the first book by Jennifer Bosworth, as far as I can tell.
It's a YA post apocalyptic novel with a rather unique main character and
power. The basic premise is that a massive earthquake has destroyed
LA, leaving only a single tower remaining in the ruins and a bunch of
hungry survivors. One of the survivors is Mia, a young girl with a
strange attraction--almost an addiction--to lightning. She's been
struck multiple times and survived. In the aftermath of the earthquake,
she's simply trying to keep herself, her brother, and her traumatized
mother alive. But a religious group has risen from the destruction,
preaching that an even greater earthquake--one that will not only
destroy LA but affect the entire world--is coming . . . and Mia is their
key to unlocking that earthquakes power. They want the earthquake to
cleanse the earth. A second cult has risen to oppose them, and Mia
finds herself caught in the middle.
I liked the magical component in this book, the use of lightning. I
also like the post apocalyptic--or is it mid-apocalyptic?--aspects of
the book. The magical components are unique, not something I've seen
recently in books (although there has been lightning wielders in comics
and on TV and in movies, of course), and I've always liked anything
apocalyptic. As a YA read, it's a good book.
The feel off the book, though, was slightly off. It's hard to pinpoint,
because the writing is fine and the plot is fine . . . but at the same
time it felt like this had been scripted and then fleshed out into a
book. The plot felt set, and the characters didn't seem to so much live
as move through that prescribed plot. I never felt that the decisions
made by the characters, their choices, were really theirs, instead, I
felt like they were simply doing what they were supposed to be doing.
Like I said, it's hard to describe and certainly difficult to pinpoint
what exactly was causing this feeling. But that's how I felt reading
it. Perhaps it's because it's a YA novel, and I don't generally read
them.
In any case, I thought it was an interesting read, simply for the setting and the lightning.
when your husband cheats