Review: Struck

Stuck by Jennifer Bosworth

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.

Jennifer Bosworth has created a rich dystopian society in her début, Struck. Mia is a lightning addict who has not just survived one strike, but countless strikes and she can feel when the storms are coming. Living in a world that has been devastated by a storm and earthquake and with prophecies that another storm was approaching bring the apocalypse, she just wants to stay away from it all and protect her younger brother and mother who is suffering from being stuck in a collapsed building after the earthquake.

When two cults tell her she 'must' join them to fulfil her part of the prophecy (one could destroy the world, one's supposed to save it), she has to decide which side, if any, she'll join. But what will she do when she only wants to stay out of it and stay away from the oncoming storm.

Mia was an intriguing character. She is so closed off because of her scars and afraid that she'll hurt anyone who gets close to her. Her lightning addiction reminded me of an adrenalin addiction and Bosworth created the conflicting emotions that made Mia both strong but also fragile. She was a good character to be inside the head of and follow the story.

The two cults kept the story interesting and there were enough twists and turns to make me want to turn the page. The story was interesting, although I felt that at parts it dragged on and took too long to get to the climax, but that did not make me stop reading. Overall, I would recommend this to anyone who loves good dystopian and strong heroines.

Source: Kindle
2012 Debut Author Challenge: #5 of 12

2012 YA Reading Challenge: #16 of 50