Book Review: Struck by Jennifer Bosworth

Title: Struck

Author: Jennifer Bosworth
Series: Struck, #1
Pages:  373
Publisher: Doubleday Children's
Date of Publication: 26th April 2012
Source: Publisher*
Synopsis 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.

My Thoughts:
So, I'll confess, I read this book ages ago... And I've left my review for way too long and so it might be a bit waffley, so sorry in advance! I've made notes though so all should be fine. I hope!

The premise of this book is what drew me in the first place, and for once, it wasn't the cover. Sure, the cover's nice, but it was the fact that it's about a girl who's addicted to being struck by lightning that made me need to read this book. How is that even possible? I thought if you get struck by lightning, surely you die instantly? And yes, I know this is fiction but I can't help but feel like there might be a way to survive. Let me know, people, let me know in the comments ;P

So yeah, having never read anything quite like this, I went into it not really knowing what to expect, apart from that it was dystopian, which, as it turns out was wrong anyway (It's post-apocalyptic). I was intrigued by the idea of having a world that's divided into strong 'religious' believers and then the atheists on the other side. I kind of feel like there's rarely any mention of religion in books, and while I'm okay with that (I'm aware a lot of people find it to be preachy, and I totally get that), it was interesting to read about Prophet and see religion from a different perspective than I'm used to, if that makes sense. Not that there's a huge amount of religion in the book...

The characters were great - I really liked Mia. I thought she was determined and she wasn't led astray at the first mention of mysterious pretty boy. She kept her head and she knew when to say no, even if it didn't exactly last. She looked after her brother and had a fierce protectiveness over her family, and it was awesome to see some kinds of family bonds, even if sometimes they seemed very weak. However, Mia is a lightning addict, and for the most part of this book I didn't fully understand what this meant. I needed more from the author about how this was possible, and what it meant for Mia, as it wasn't really explored at all, until the end.

I really liked Jeremy too. I loved how the author slowly revealed things about him to us, just enough that we stayed interested, but not too much that there wasn't any mystery to him anymore. I loved the way his story arc played out, and let me tell you, I had no idea that was coming. He was vague and mysterious and I loved it. Also, he was the only love interest, so don't worry - there's no unnecessary love triangle here!

Unfortunately, there was something missing for me. I can't quite put my finger on it, but Struck lacked something, and it made it not quite as good as I wanted it to be. I think maybe it's because there are so many post-apoc and dystopian YA novels out there at the moment that the synopsis of this one jumped out at me and I was so excited to read something new and refreshing, that while it was really good, it wasn't the mind-blowingly amazing that I wished it would be.

Overall though, Struck was a really impressive debut novel and I'm looking forward to reading the next one. The characters are good, the writing's brilliant, the world building is original and refreshing, and it hooks you in at the very first page and finishes with a bang. Although perhaps lacking in that special wow-factor in the middle, I would definitely recommend to fans of dystopian and post-apoc YA fiction as this is certainly one of the better books in the genre right now.

*Huge thanks to Random House for sending me this in exchange for an honest review! In no way has this affected my opinion of the book. Also, sorry it's really late! :)