Review of Wide Awake-Academy of the Fallen Series by Daniele Lanzarotta

Author: Daniele Lanzarotta

Date Published: May 25, 2011

Publisher: Rocket Science Productions

ASIN: B0052TMTE4

 

 

Kayla is a 16-year-old girl who was adopted when she was little. She lives a normal life, with great friends, loving adoptive parents, and well... a not-so-great boyfriend. But the reason why she was given up for adoption was far from any usual reason. She was meant to be kept away from the Academy and anything else related to the supernatural beings that could hurt her.

Unfortunately for Kayla, it was only a matter of time before she encountered the creatures from the Otherworld, and there is just no running away from the beings that she can now see.

In trying to protect Kayla by keeping her away from the Academy, she may have just been put in even more danger.

This is one of those stories that I had a lot of hopes for, and it just didn't deliver to my expectations. The story started off good, and the characters were well-developed. I hated her boyfriend from the second he pulled her aside at the museum, and I loved Kayla what she jumped to cut him off at the pass. The girl has guts. Only, when she starts being followed by "ghosts," not so much.

The whole story started off with this creepy vibe, and the fact that Kayla is haunted really made me want to stick with it. Add to that the outcast hero, Hunter, who holds a considerable amount of mystery himself, and the story moved along in the same direction any teenage romance would, which is good. However, for all we do learn about what is really going on, we are left in the dark on so much more. What is the secret surrounding Hunter, exactly? That is the biggest question for me, and I feel like I was running around in circles, close but never able to figure it out. And there were other things I took issue with.

One problem for me was the considerable amount of typos and grammatical errors. No book is perfect, and I have made this clear in any review I have ever written where I run into this problem. Only if they are plentiful does it ever really bother me. Fact is, I was surprised that the author had an editor or was even traditionally published. The language the characters used was not how people really talk. There was a huge lack of contractions, which would have made it so much easier to read instead of jerky as it was. Punctuation was also a major problem, which affected readability. Finally, the so called cliffhanger was weak. Instead of, say, revealing Hunter's secret, we were left with *SPOILER ALERT* a confession that he "might" be in love with Kayla. Somehow, that is just not enough make me desperate to find out what happens next, which is disappointing, because I really wanted to love this story. I don't know if I will be reading the next in the series yet, but if I do, it will be somewhere down the line. I'm in no hurry. This is a good YA book for a rainy day.

Wide Awake has a 4.8/5 star overall rating and is available on Amazon.