Ultraviolet by J.R. Anderson Series: Ultraviolet #1
Published by Orchard Books on June 2nd, 2011
Goodreads
Once upon a time there was a girl who was special.
This is not her story.
Unless you count the part where I killed her.Sixteen-year-old Alison has been sectioned in a mental institute for teens, having murdered the most perfect and popular girl at school. But the case is a mystery: no body has been found, and Alison's condition is proving difficult to diagnose. Alison herself can't explain what happened: one minute she was fighting with Tori -- the next she disintegrated. Into nothing. But that's impossible. Right?
A few weeks ago I was talking to my friend Linda (I hope it’s ok I called you that!) via twitter about creating a “black sheep” button. I really wish I wouldn’t have been so lazy and would have just made the darn things because it would totally come in handy for this review.
That’s right folks. I didn’t like Ultraviolet, and the reasons why are even more complicated than the story itself. And trust me that’s a whole lot of “complicated”. Now I don’t mean “complicated” in the sense that I had no clue what was going on (I comprehend just fine) it just felt like Ultraviolet was more of Anderson’s way of not knowing if she wanted to write a sci-fi, a paranormal or a thriller. It read, at least to me, like she looked at these three genres and said “oh I can’t decided I’ll just do ALL OF THEM!” and continued to do just that.
And yes I’m aware that these 3 genres (topics? whatevs) can coexist happily within a book but with Ultraviolet it seemed like “X” happened just to support the sci-fi part and “Y” happened just so the sic-fi part could lead to the paranormal part. The story itself was truly original and beautifully written and it had some interesting (albeit over the flipping top) characters, but it just did nothing for me.
The story starts off strong and suspenseful, shrouded in mystery as Alison (our MC) wakes up in psychiatric hospital with no memory of how she got there or what happened during the 2 weeks she was there. As time progressed and Alison was moved to a new psychiatric hospital with other kids her own age we begin to piece together what caused Alison to wind up here in the first place but we also start to get to know Alison as a trouble girl with unbelievable abilities. I honestly have no desire to ruin the book for others but let me tell you these “abilities” are not super hero related but the are really cool all the same. In fact it’s these abilities, not the sic-fi part or the thriller part that actually pushed me to finish Ultraviolet. After a while the pace slowed dow, Alison got annoying the supporting characters began to feel like just because filler and it really became an effort for me to finish. The Anderson threw this “huge” twist at the end that should have gripped me by my lady balls and made all my indecisiveness disappear but instead all I did was roll my eyes and say “saw that coming from chapter 9”.
I really REALLY wanted to love this book but I just can’t get over how choppy it felt and how all the twist and turns were more like slight bends and soft curves. I know there’s a second book in the series that focuses on Tori (a cool chick who came just a little too late) but I haven’t decided on if I’ll read it or not.
