by Marilyn Kaye
2009 Kingfisher
ISBN:978-0-7534-6310-9
213 Pages
Softcover Edition
Genre: Paranormal
4/5 Stars
Summary (Press Release)
Being able to see the future is supposed to be a gift, but Emily's visions have caused nothing but problems. Now the Gifted students are disappearing one by one, and Emily's gift is their only hope of having a future at all.
Emily has a secret. She's GIFTED. And she's not the only one...
My Thoughts
Considering this is a pre-adolescent novel intended for the grade 5-9 level, I have been enjoying these novels very much. This third book in the series is my favourite book of the series so far. They are very quick, easy reads (I think it took me less than an hour), but each one is very entertaining and interesting.
In this novel, the gifted students are being taken one by one for reasons that nobody knows. At first no one is alarmed, but when the third student goes missing, Emily, is very concerned as she has been having visions of the missing students. She is very confused by her visions as they do not make a lot of sense, and her mother and friends, upon whom she needs support, are not giving her the support she needs to gain the confidence to use the visions to help others. She is also carrying a load of guilt that has to do with her visions, but I will not be giving away the reason for that here in this review. When Emily realizes that little is being done to find her missing friends, she develops the nerve and confidence to do the unthinkable: she heads out at night to put herself at the mercy of those who have taken her friends in order to help them.
What I really like about these novels is that each one focuses on each indibidual character and tells their story. This one tells Emily's story and it is so far my favourite one of the series. The vocabulary is simple and straightforward, and the writing clear. I find the characters interesting, with a lot of character development occurring, something that can happen in a series such as this one that continues for many books. I find myself rooting and carng for these characters, even the ones I initially disliked, some of which I did dislike in the beginning.
One of the things that did irk me in this book though, was the lack of involvement of the police when the children did go missing. As a parent, I would have been kicking and screaming at the police officer's door, begging them to look for my missing child, and that did not happen in this novel. The only scene that satisfied me was when Emily's mother took the principal and teachers to task for her missing child and was screaming herself silly in the hallway over her missing child. Come on, when children go missing, there will obviously be a much greater fuss than what occurred in this novel.
Verdict
This was my favourite novel of the series so far for many different reasons. I like the plot advancement in this novel, particularly at the end when we discover so much more as to what is going on and it made me much more interested in the novels that are coming. This novel was a set-up for some future plot and I found that intriguing. I am looking forward to the next book in the series, Finders Keepers, which is to be released in April 2010.
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