Review: Evolution

Title: Evolution

Author: Kelly Carrero

Date of Publication: April 29, 2012

Formats Available: E-book

Buy This Book: Amazon

Synopsis: Seventeen year old Jade Sommers life tuned upside down the moment she saw the inch long cut across her face, heal right before her eyes.

Jade thought she was going insane, but her boyfriend Aiden Scott knew better. He knew what she was. And like him, she was born this way.

Now if finding out that people like her shouldn't exist was bad enough, Jades best friend is kidnapped by the psycho who’s terrorised her dreams. With the help of Aiden, she has to figure out how to saver her, before it’s too late.

But what Jade doesn't know, is not everything is what it seems. She is merely a puppet in a sadistic game to find out what she is truly capable of – and the game has only just begun.

My Review: 

Evolution is one of those novels that is entertaining in its own way but is also so terribly frustrating it's impossible not to feel annoyed by the end. Even though it's a short novel it felt much longer because of the sheer amount of annoying plot devices and lack of reasoning behind major plot events.

Both Jade and her boyfriend Aiden were mediocre characters. They had just enough personality to keep me interested in them but at the same time they just weren't developed enough for me to really feel connected to them. I really wish there had been a little more back story about how Jade and Aiden met and more information about Aiden's family. I was also very disappointed in the development of Chelsea, Jades best friend who was kidnapped, from what I saw she had a very shallow personality and before I even got know her she was suddenly gone. Not only was I a little annoyed with hardly knowing her character but I wasn't very impressed with the friendship ties between Jade and Chelsea, when Chelsea gets kidnapped Jade takes her own sweet time trying to find her, between make out sessions with Aiden that is.

The most frustrating thing about this novel was the fact that there were never any explanations for what was going on. All of a sudden Jade can do super human things, why? We have no idea. Jade's best friend is kidnapped, why? No clue. Jades neighbor lies about what she saw when Jade's friend was kidnapped, why? Just because. By the end of the novel I was so annoyed with the lack of reasoning behind the characters actions I was about ready to throw my Kindle across the room. It's as though the reader only gets to see the surface of the story without understanding all the components that are making it come together. After the totally random "cliffhanger" ending, which also had no reasoning behind it, I was one hundred percent done with this novel.

Despite the horrible plot development Carrero did do a great job with the writing style itself. Her writing wasn't hard to read or choppy and the entire novel flowed together really well. Unfortunately that is about the only positive thing about this novel. Carrero has the potential to be a good writer she just needs to work on plot development and making sure each of the events in the novel has a purpose. The ideas Carrero had were good ones, they just weren't executed to their full potential.

Overall I wouldn't exactly recommend Evolution to readers looking for an indie paranormal novel. The amount of frustrating events and the way the plot events didn't fit together annoyed me to no end. Evolution just didn't turn out to be my cup of tea.

2/5