Introductions
by C.L. Stone is the first in the Academy: Ghost Bird series. Sang is a loner, abused by her mother, ignored by her father. She meets a boy from down the street when his dog knocks her over and for some reason, instead of going home, she spends the night at the boy’s house. The next morning she meets two of the boy’s friends and goes with them to the mall where a man hits on her and, for some reason, the boys go ballistic and apparently totally beat the man (never to be seen again) up. The next day she meets another boy (and, of course, they are all super hot) and goes swimming with him (which prompts him to say she’s not like other girls because girls don’t swim or something like that). Of course he turns out to be best friends with the three from the previous day. For who knows what reason, the boys decide to buy Sang a iPhone so they can keep in contact with her at all times. Within a day she’s met the remaining three boys in the group. And then it’s time to register for classes (picked by the boys so she’ll be with at least one of them at all times of course!) at the high school – a school that a big deal has been made over it being public school. When Sang meets two teachers, the boys’ connection – The Academy – is made somewhat clear. Or, really, not clear at all. And then, after all 10 main characters have been properly introduced, it is time for the second (of a planned 20+) book.
Oh, boy. Where to start? The book wasn’t horrible. Parts held my attention. But the whole time this little voice in the back of my head was screaming, “What the heck? Are you insane? Am I supposed to believe any of this at all?” The writing was pretty atrocious. Typos, places where it had clearly been edited but wrong words or bits of sentences were left behind in the process, missing words or words repeated, sentence fragments, descriptions that just made me roll my eyes, etc. I get that Sang’s parents isolated Sang and all, but she did go to school where they lived before so it was puzzling why someone being nice to her was so foreign to her and why simply brushing up against someone would cause her to blush and get all excited. Did she never have a single friend prior to getting knocked over by the dog? Did she never accidentally touch someone in her old school? In her entire life? It just didn’t make sense. Also, that these seven boys would be so into her instantly upon laying eyes on her was weird. They acted like she was their best friend and they had known her only hours. Usually I think that the premise of a book could have been well done by someone who was a better writer, but in the case of Introductions, I really don’t think so.
2 (out of 5) Stars
Books Read in 2014: 104
Pages Read in 2014: 19,574
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