Awaken By Katie Kacvinsky

Title: Awaken

Author: Katie Kavinsky

Pages: 310

Level: Young Adult

Published: May 23, 2011

"In the year 2060, everything is done digitally. Kids no longer go to schools. They stay home and take classes online. Adults work from home, too. Even dating is no longer done in person. Why walk on a real beach when you can stroll down a digitally remastered one instead? No bad weather, no seagulls, nothing real to ruin a perfectly fine time. Though she's grown up in this digital world, something about being cut off from everyone doesn't sit right with seventeen-year-old Madeline. Her favorite activity--the only one she does off line--is soccer. She likes the physicality of it and the comradery with the other girls. Then she meets Justin. He, too, prefers life off line. It's all he talks about. He even takes her out to a real coffee shop and an underground club. Maybe it's his attentiveness, or the physical closeness of actually being with someone, or just that he's very good looking, Madie is definitely drawn to him. But there's also something very aloof about him, like perhaps he's hiding something. When Madie uncovers the truth, she's faced with the question: What's more important, fighting for what you believe in or love?"

Review:

I picked up this book probably 8 months ago and I really wanted to read it so I put it on my plan to read list and forgot about it. Man, do I wish that I would have bought it that day. This book was extremely good. I started at about 10PM last night and I could not stop reading it. It was so good, I think I finally finished at 3 AM and I was kind of mindblown.

The plot was so different from anything that I have read so it was refreshing to read something that hadn't already been done 50 billion times. And, I am a hopeless romantic so when I met a sexy,brilliant, mysterious heartthrob, I was even more mesmerized to continue reading it.

One of the characteristics of a really good book, at least to me anyway, is when the book really makes you think or it makes you want to change your ways. The main storyline of this book was about how digitalized everything had become and how no one was interacting with each other or spending time outdoors. It really made me want to go take a walk outside or touch the grass. I was really considering putting down the computer, and even books for a while because I need to spend more time outside. I can't do that though, so whatever.

I also didn't mind the characters either. I really liked Justin, if I had met him in real life I definitely would have been swooning.

I think being that this was her debut novel, she deserves a standing O because it was really good. I do have some minor things that bugged me though.

First off, the main character, Madeline, took forever to chose what side she was going to be on. She was so wishy-washy I was screaming pick a side! Another thing, the romance was so generic, there wasn't anything new to it. And the ending was so cheesy, not the very ending, but the "action" parts. I was laughing at how stupid it was, but maybe that was just me.

Otherwise this book was really good and if you want to breathe a breath of fresh air, this book will make you do it for the most part.

Cover: 4/5

Character Rating: 3/5

Style: 4/5

Development: 4/5

Overall:

****