Book Review: The Kiss of Deception

The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publication Date:  July 2014
Source: Netgalley review copy

Fed up and ready for a new life, Lia flees to a distant village on the morning of her wedding. She settles in among the common folk, intrigued when two mysterious and handsome strangers arrive—and unaware that one is the jilted prince and the other an assassin sent to kill her. Deceptions swirl and Lia finds herself on the brink of unlocking perilous secrets—secrets that may unravel her world—even as she feels herself falling in love.

This book started off a bit slow, and honestly I was a little bored. For me, it really didn't pick up until the second half of the book, where I felt there was more world building and more interesting things coming into play.

There is a love triangle that all readers (oops, I mean very few readers) love to see. It almost seems to be resolved quite early on, but then comes back with a vengeance. It's not as bad as some, but it threatens to overshadow what could be a very good story with a sweet romance.

I definitely liked it well enough to read the next book, and would recommend it to fans of YA fantasy.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Title: The Adoration of Jenna Fox
Author: Mary E. Pearson
Genre: YA Science Fiction
Page Count: 265
Why I read it: sounded good
Grade: B-

Synopsis:
Seventeen-year-old Jenna has been told that is her name. She has just awoken from a year-long coma, and she's still recovering from the terrible accident that caused it. Her parents show her home movies of her life, her memories, but she has no recollection. Is she really the same girl she sees on the screen?
Little by little, Jenna begins to remember. Along with the memories come questions—questions no one wants to answer for her. What really happened after the accident?  

My review:
This book had a fairly predictable plot.  I don't think I was really surprised once while reading it, and I know I was supposed to be.  Still, the writing was pretty good, and I liked it enough that I wasn't bothered by the predictability.

The characters were okay, but we really only get to know Jenna in this novel, and the other characters are not fleshed out at all.  It's just a journey of self-discovery for Jenna, and that's pretty much it.  She does have interactions with other characters, but even those seemed to be interactions to help us understand who Jenna is, and not who anybody else is.

I'd recommend this for a quick read, especially if you like YA books.  This book was eerily similar to Skinned by Robin Wasserman--so many plot points were the same, except the stories seemed to go in totally different directions.