Mia Price has survived countless lightning strikes. She’s also survived the ruin of Los Angeles, the near-death of her mother, and her mother’s current PTSD. But can she survive being possibly the most powerful person on Earth? Can she survive being fought over by two very dangerous “cults” that arose with earthquake? Can she survive the coming storm, bigger than the first, bringing so much more lightning with it to tempt her? Can she survive Jeremy, the boy who has seen her his entire life, the boy who has tried to kill her, the only person that really just wants her safe?

Bosworth creates an intriguing world- one we should know from every end of the world story, from every disaster in human history, and yet one we don’t know at all. They say lightning has a different outcome for every person it touches. Disasters and story plots are much the same. We’ve never seen a lightning survivor holding as much power as Mia does- the power of lightning itself. We’ve never seen lightning cause an earthquake, or an earthquake and lightning create two different, yet shockingly similar, cults. Bosworth shows us this, in such a way that it makes a fair amount of sense.
Mia and Jeremy are very well put together and very in-depth. Mia offers up her myriad of emotions that are perfectly in touch with her situations and environments. She shows her much-needed maturity in her willingness to uphold her family despite the disaster and to do what she has to do, no matter what the cost. Mia’s attraction to Jeremy is real and solid, from the first page to the last. Bosworth took the very cliche romantic “spark” and “tingles” to full-blown, literal electric storms that fit well in the story without sounding dramatic or exaggerated.
Finally, I love Bosworth’s writing style. Her words are descriptive, clean-cut, and literal without being tedious or boring. She says exactly what she wants us to hear, and Mia’s constant, easy voice throws us straight into her thoughts.

My sole problem with the plot is where Bosworth took the cults. It’s pretty typical that large disasters create religious uproars and their counterparts. It’s something we hear a lot these days and aren’t too appreciative of when we see it even more. Why did it have to be an insane prophet and a devil-related retaliation? Why not two groups just divided on how to use this power that came from nature, instead of divided on God’s will and God’s prophet and God’s wishes? I found the warring sides of this plot unoriginal and uninteresting.
Jeremy has multiple sides and layers, as any good character and as most teenagers do, even as he tries his best to follow his soul. One comment here, however, is that Jeremy does not always show the level of attraction that Mia does. It sometimes feels as if he’s totally uninterested, which would be fine, if they were doomed to be apart. In the end, they are together, but I don’t get that feeling of “This could last forever,” which I think was something Bosworth was trying for, despite not achieving it.

All in all, this book makes up for its flaws in quite a few places, and is worth a read.

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Created Apr 28, 2013 at 7:43pm • Submit your own review...