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A review by pewterwolf
Adaptation by Malinda Lo
3.0
Review Taken From The Pewter Wolf
When birds start suddenly dying, causing flights to be grounded, Reese and David decide to drive back home. But when a bird flies into the car, Reese loses control and the car flips. Almost a month later, she and David wake up in a military hospital from their comas, and the doctors refuse to tell them what happens...
But that's only the start, when she gets home, Reese realises that something has changed within her. As she's trying to figure out what happened to her that can't be humanly possible, she finds herself torn between David, a longterm crush, and Amber, a whirlwind of a girl that crashed into her life.
But what is going on? And who can she trust?
Ok, I am going to admit this. This is one of those books that, when I first heard of it, I was hugely excited over. So to hear that Hodder Children was publishing it in the UK, made me very happy. We don't have any bisexual characters in YA/New Adult so this would be a breath of fresh air. I mean, we always seem to have gay or lesbian characters but when it comes to the LGBT community, the rest seem to be ignored or they are the sidekicks or background character.
And it was. Up to a point. But more on this later.
I am going to be honest with you. I was a little disappointed over this book. There was good points to this, but there was several bad points. A mixed bag.
Ok, the good. I couldn't stop reading it. Even when I was frustrated with it, I had to know what was going to happen next. Malinda's writing made it effortless and I just kept clicking my kindle, wanting to know what happened next.
And the last 20-odd percentage made me read very late into the night!
But, this book isn't perfect. I have two real issues. Characters and genre.
With the three main characters (Reese, David and Amber), I never felt like I "clicked" or connected to them. These are our main leads so we should be rooting for them, but I felt very detached from them. Maybe this is Malinda's point because of what they went through, but still... I want to connect to these characters on some level.
My second issue was a huge problem and it's genre. The book couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Was it a sci-fi novel? Was it is a love triangle story? Was it a conspiracy theory story? It kept changing every other chapter. It only felt like Adaptation only figured it out in the last 20-odd percentage, but seeing as this is a duology (with an eNovella, [b:Natural Selection|21044280|Natural Selection|Malinda Lo|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1394251605s/21044280.jpg|24792792]), I fear that it will fall back into this "What am I?".
Also, the twists in this book, I kinda saw coming. A few felt very obvious to me. I was expecting a lot of moments where I was genuinely shocked. Maybe I did have my expectations over this book too high...
While I'm not 100% certain if I will read the sequel, [b:Inheritance|20696578|Inheritance (Adaptation #2)|Malinda Lo|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1391348438s/20696578.jpg|21740887], I am quite happy that, finally, there seems to be a book out there that has a bi love triangle and that YA readers are treated with respect over how it was written. We YA readers are smarter than most people give us credit for.
When birds start suddenly dying, causing flights to be grounded, Reese and David decide to drive back home. But when a bird flies into the car, Reese loses control and the car flips. Almost a month later, she and David wake up in a military hospital from their comas, and the doctors refuse to tell them what happens...
But that's only the start, when she gets home, Reese realises that something has changed within her. As she's trying to figure out what happened to her that can't be humanly possible, she finds herself torn between David, a longterm crush, and Amber, a whirlwind of a girl that crashed into her life.
But what is going on? And who can she trust?
Ok, I am going to admit this. This is one of those books that, when I first heard of it, I was hugely excited over. So to hear that Hodder Children was publishing it in the UK, made me very happy. We don't have any bisexual characters in YA/New Adult so this would be a breath of fresh air. I mean, we always seem to have gay or lesbian characters but when it comes to the LGBT community, the rest seem to be ignored or they are the sidekicks or background character.
And it was. Up to a point. But more on this later.
I am going to be honest with you. I was a little disappointed over this book. There was good points to this, but there was several bad points. A mixed bag.
Ok, the good. I couldn't stop reading it. Even when I was frustrated with it, I had to know what was going to happen next. Malinda's writing made it effortless and I just kept clicking my kindle, wanting to know what happened next.
And the last 20-odd percentage made me read very late into the night!
But, this book isn't perfect. I have two real issues. Characters and genre.
With the three main characters (Reese, David and Amber), I never felt like I "clicked" or connected to them. These are our main leads so we should be rooting for them, but I felt very detached from them. Maybe this is Malinda's point because of what they went through, but still... I want to connect to these characters on some level.
My second issue was a huge problem and it's genre. The book couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Was it a sci-fi novel? Was it is a love triangle story? Was it a conspiracy theory story? It kept changing every other chapter. It only felt like Adaptation only figured it out in the last 20-odd percentage, but seeing as this is a duology (with an eNovella, [b:Natural Selection|21044280|Natural Selection|Malinda Lo|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1394251605s/21044280.jpg|24792792]), I fear that it will fall back into this "What am I?".
Also, the twists in this book, I kinda saw coming. A few felt very obvious to me. I was expecting a lot of moments where I was genuinely shocked. Maybe I did have my expectations over this book too high...
While I'm not 100% certain if I will read the sequel, [b:Inheritance|20696578|Inheritance (Adaptation #2)|Malinda Lo|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1391348438s/20696578.jpg|21740887], I am quite happy that, finally, there seems to be a book out there that has a bi love triangle and that YA readers are treated with respect over how it was written. We YA readers are smarter than most people give us credit for.