Book Review: Struck

Goodreads summary:

Mia Price is a lightning addict. She’s survived countless strikes, but her craving to connect to the energy in storms endangers her life and the lives of those around her.

Los Angeles, where lightning rarely strikes, is one of the few places Mia feels safe from her addiction. But when an earthquake devastates the city, her haven is transformed into a minefield of chaos and danger. The beaches become massive tent cities. Downtown is a crumbling wasteland, where a traveling party moves to a different empty building each night, the revelers drawn to the destruction by a force they cannot deny. Two warring cults rise to power, and both see Mia as the key to their opposing doomsday prophecies. They believe she has a connection to the freak electrical storm that caused the quake, and to the far more devastating storm that is yet to come.

Mia wants to trust the enigmatic and alluring Jeremy when he promises to protect her, but she fears he isn’t who he claims to be. In the end, the passion and power that brought them together could be their downfall. When the final disaster strikes, Mia must risk unleashing the full horror of her strength to save the people she loves, or lose everything.

My review:

Struck was an interesting novel.  It's certainly unique, but there were parts that I thought were cliche.  All in all, though, it stands out from most post-apocalyptic YA fiction.

I'll start with what disappointed me - the plot.  I loved the idea of Mia being a lightning addict, and I really wanted the story to be focused more on her and her powers.  Instead, a good portion of the plot is focused on the two different cults who want Mia to join them.  There were also some anti-religious remarks that bothered me.

The characters are all right.  Mia is a fairly fun narrator, and she has a good sense of humor, but the decisions she made sometimes just made me want to wring her neck.  However, I liked the complicated relationships she had with her family and the tough choices she had to make concerning them.

The love interest, Jeremy, was nice enough, though a bit boring.  Basically he's your typical YA love interest - staggeringly good-looking, mysterious, protective, smart, etc.  However, he isn't in the story as much as I thought he would be, which is good in a sense because it meant the story stayed focused on the plot rather than the romance.  But it was also bad, because Mia only knew him for a short time, and it made the romance seem kind of ridiculous.  Too much insta-love for my taste...

I know I focused on a lot of negative in this review, but overall I enjoyed this story.  The premise is so original, despite the somewhat flat characters.  And while I would have loved to see more of Mia and her lightning powers, I think the focus on the cults does add to the intensity of the story.  Even though I wasn't crazy about the plot, there's plenty of action and it's always exciting.

If you are the type of person who prefers a book to be plot-driven rather than character-driven, then you'll probably love Struck.  But if, like me, you have to have really likeable, engaging characters, then you might not be so crazy about this book.  Still, this sticks out from all the dystopians out there and I look forward to reading more books by Jennifer Bosworth in the future!

My rating:  6 out of 10

~ The Bookworm