New Worlds, Unique Gifts And…Studying At University? In Gifted By J.A. George

*All reviews I write are spoiler free*

So this weekend, I got my hands on this book and pretty much read it in two days. It’s a short book, so I knew I would, and instead of waiting another week or so to upload the review on my usual review day (Friday), here it is today.

Because it can’t be fair to keep it waiting for so long, right?

Plus by then I’ll probably have finished another book so…yeah. Extra review for this week!

I don’t know why I just rambled about all that. I think it’d be pretty clear that I finished another book if there’s another review 😀

Enough rambling. Let’s talk about Gifted!

Title: Gifted

Author:  J.A. George

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Series Status: The 1st book in The Hayven Series

Number Of Pages:  332

(Found on back cover, view different synopsis on Goodreads)

There is no chosen one in this story.

Avery Gray was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and happened to make a decision that altered her future forever. It happens to all of us every day.

Avery is a size twelve university student with a penchant for dry humour, and she’s as normal as they come. One rainy afternoon, Avery had a choice to make: go through the alleyway or around it. Two possible options. One would have had her future to continue on as planned, the other would ensure that her future never remained the same again. She unknowingly went for the latter.

Change can be good. It can bring new opportunities, new friends and a life you never thought possible. Change can be bad. It can bring you people determined to burn your city to the ground.

It all depends on the decisions you make.

*I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review*

Now, I’m going to be frank – yes this does sound like a stereotypical fantasy story where the main character suddenly discovers they’re not like everyone else and BOOM the journey begins.

But I’m also going to be honest (as always) – I love those sort of stories. I don’t care how many times it’s been done, if I can read another version that’s different enough from the rest of them, I’ll love it!

And let me tell you, I really liked how this book handled the trope.

I always think that when a character is told they’re “different” or “part of something much bigger”, they always believe it a bit too quickly. I mean, if someone told me that, it’d take me months and a whole lot of proof before I’d start believing them. And that’s exactly what I loved about this book! Everything you learn from the synopsis happens at the very beginning of the book, and the rest is basically our main character – Ava – trying to come to terms with what happened and why.

I love the idea of this world. I immediately wanted to know more about it. How the community thrived. If there were any laws or rules to how things worked. And gradually, you do get to know. You discover the world along with Ava, seeing everything through her eyes and feeling like they’re your own. You get to see how she tries to balance this new world and her friends, all while studying at University. And I really enjoyed the fact that University was one of the settings of this book. I don’t see that often.

But I do have to say what made this book so addictive to me was the characters. There’s such an eclectic cast. Discovering everyone’s personalities and seeing how much they range was just perfect for me. Though I did find the relationship developments a bit sudden. That might be because it’s such a short book, and the time frame does take place over a fair few months. But I remember at one point thinking “woah well that was sudden” when seeing how the relationships shifted through the book.

I became engaged with this story so quickly. I adored learning about the gifts people had. It reminded me of X-men in that way. The plot to me was addictive. Just reading about a messy situation that needs to be untangled gets to me. I almost go into Sherlock Holmes mode and try to figure everything out before it’s revealed (which doesn’t happen often). And I actually have predictions for this book! I never usually pick up on little details enough to guess what’ll happen, but with this book it was hard not to. I was that invested in it!

“Just think, if the word “impossible” had never been introduced to the English language… well, I think it’s fair to say humans would have achieved a lot more than we have today.”

Though there’s hardly any action in this book, it’s by no means boring. There’s so much to learn about the world and the people living in the story, I had no problem continually flipping through the pages. Plus I feel like if there was any more action in it, the whole story would’ve felt rushed with the book being quite short. You can definitely tell this is just the beginning of the series. And since there’s more to come, I’m very much looking forward to diving into this world once again.

Rated 4/5 stars!

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Share your thoughts!

Have you read this book? What did you think?

If you haven’t read this book, does it sound interesting to you?

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Until next time…

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