Book Review- Struck by Jennifer Bosworth

Title: Struck

 Author: Jennifer Bosworth

Series:  Struck #1

Published:  26 April 2012 by Doubleday

Length: 373 pages

Source: Netgalley. Once again, sorry for the wait.

Summary : 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

Review: Mia is a human pylon. And she loves it. and then she has a dream in which a boy is standing there with a knife ready to kill her. A few days later, an earthquake hits Los Angeles, and people are calling it the end of the world. Mia wants to take care of her family, but then she gets caught up between two cults. Those who follow Rance Ridley, prophet who performs miracles, and the Seekers, who want her for something. Mia only really cares about her mother and brother, but after being pulled in between these two groups, they’re the least of her worries.

A lightning addict! Wow! From the blurb I was highly excited about this one.  And it didn’t disappoint. Mia’s narration is gripping, and her actions to try and keep her family safe even more so. It’s nice that Mia will do what she can to protect them, and her business with the Dealer shows how loyal and caring she is. On other counts, she's not amazing. 

The cults were the most intriguing things about this for me. The devotion to the causes was both spectacular and a bit scary, and people in both of them are completely unpredictable. The Seekers want Mia to stop the apocalypse and keep dragging her in to their ceremonies and so on. The Followers believe it’s time to repent for sins and so on. both of them have good and bad sides that we see along with Mia, and are thought provoking in their own ways.

Instalove alert. Kind of. I found Jeremy kind of boring and slightly annoying. The relationship then develops  at a better pace, but fact that Mia falls in love with a guy she first sees with a knife is a kind of WTH moment.

There’s also a few things that seems a bit drawn out and predictable. It took a long time to get to some important things, and with so many things happening, there were a couple of bits that I thought didn’t need to be there.

But not the world building. Wow. I could easily imagine the disaster-struck LA, full of hungry people desperate for medicine, food, supplies and so on. most things can be obtained if you have enough cash. It’s a kind of typical post-apocalyptic world-but it’s a good typical post-apocalyptic world.

Overall:  Strength  4 tea to a different post-apocalyptic novel with a lot of awesomeness.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website |