Thursday 22 August 2013

Poltergeeks by Sean Cummings

Title: Poltergeeks
Author: Sean Cummings
Publisher: Strange Chemistry
Released: October 2nd 2012
Pages: 320 (eBook)
Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US
Add on Goodreads

15-year-old Julie Richardson is about to learn that being the daughter of a witch isn't all it's cracked up to be. When she and her best friend, Marcus, witness an elderly lady jettisoned out the front door of her home, it's pretty obvious to Julie there's a supernatural connection. 

In fact, there's a whisper of menace behind increasing levels of poltergeist activity all over town. After a large-scale paranormal assault on Julie's high school, her mother falls victim to the spell Endless Night. Now it's a race against time to find out who is responsible or Julie won't just lose her mother's soul, she'll lose her mother's life.

I'd seen Poltergeeks around for a while, but only pushed myself into reading it as I got involved with the blog tour for Student Bodies. At first I was so excited to start it, as it promised a unique, magic-y twist on the common paranormal. Poltergeeks is full of action, adventure, and badass fight sequences that leave you reeling as if you've just watched it unfold right in front of you. The book is over before you know it.

Julie is a white witch, and has been trained by her mother ever since she was little. Juggling being a witch with a normal teenage life is difficult, increasingly so when Julie begins to receive some personal attacks. Someone out there is after her, and if she wants to save her mum, she's going to have to find this poltergeist and trap it once and for all.

As soon as you start reading Poltergeeks, you are thrust into Julie's world - something I'd usually find a good thing, but this time found just far too fast. I hate slow build-ups - what can I say, I'm impatient - but the setting needs to be built up properly first, especially with novels that aren't realistic contemporary. The reader needs to integrate into the author's fictional world, and in this book I just didn't get my bearings quick enough before they were off kicking ass.

I was extremely impressed with Cummings's ability to write convincingly as a teenage girl. I mean, I talk like that! Throughout the whole book, it was kind of like I was just having a casual conversation with another girl my age - weirdly surreal, but awesome nonetheless! Julie was a great protagonist, incredibly down-to-earth and likeable, not to mention feisty and badass! The secondary characters were pretty great, too - especially Marcus, bless him! It was a nice change to see a female with a kind of useless male sidekick, rather than the other way round. But he was adorable, so.

The writing was good, the plot was obviously thorough and well thought-out, and it was a really quick and enjoyable read. Overall, I'm pretty impressed, and I'm going into Student Bodies with these high expectations! I wish there had been a bit more of an explanation at the beginning, and perhaps a romance that was a little bit more believable, but it was pretty good.
Rating: 3/5

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