Review:Struck

Struck (Struck #1)
by Jennifer Bosworth
Hardcover
373 pages
Published May 8th 2012
by Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR

Summary from Goodreads:

Mia Price is a lightning addict. She's survived countless strikes, but her craving to connect to the energy in storms endangers her life and the lives of those around her.

Los Angeles, where lightning rarely strikes, is one of the few places Mia feels safe from her addiction. But when an earthquake devastates the city, her haven is transformed into a minefield of chaos and danger. The beaches become massive tent cities. Downtown is a crumbling wasteland, where a traveling party moves to a different empty building each night, the revelers drawn to the destruction by a force they cannot deny. Two warring cults rise to power, and both see Mia as the key to their opposing doomsday prophecies. They believe she has a connection to the freak electrical storm that caused the quake, and to the far more devastating storm that is yet to come.

Mia wants to trust the enigmatic and alluring Jeremy when he promises to protect her, but she fears he isn't who he claims to be. In the end, the passion and power that brought them together could be their downfall. When the final disaster strikes, Mia must risk unleashing the full horror of her strength to save the people she loves, or lose everything.

Thoughts:
Struck is nothing like I'd expected. The story is more about the religious undertones than about a special girl who can harness lightning. What with all the emphasis on the Prophet, the end of days and everything that sometimes I feel as if I'm reading some religious text instead of a YA novel.

What is not reflected in the blurb is that the book concentrates so much on how people cope with an impending doom and how religious cults can actually influence people in their lives which is kind of creepy and disturbing for me.

I can't help but imagine the Village of the Damned children when reading about the Prophet and his all white and creepy Twelve Apostles who are all teens and young ones. Super creepy.

If the story focus more on Mia's awesome lightning power than I've would have enjoy it more. But a lot of it  is about her struggle to survive and keeping her younger brother and delusional mother alive and sane which proves to be a daunting task since two different cults are trying to force them to join. The pre requisite handsome guy; Jeremy provides a distraction for Mia and the ending which is done in a grandeur setting might appeal to some but is totally expected and doesn't provide for that extra something that the book needs.

Recommended for: dystopian fans
Verdict: 3 stars.

In my Debut Author Reading Challenge 
Available on: Amazon