Great science – awful characters
Genre: Y/A, Science Fiction
No. of pages: 324
From Goodreads:
In a world like ours, humans are born in pairs. When a newborn boy takes his first breath in the coastal town of Tularosa, the exact time is noted, recorded in the Registry, and later compared to the birth times of other newborns around the globe. There will be one identical match—his half. They will meet on their eighteenth birthday and they will spend their lives together. Except this time, there is no match.
Hotheaded heartthrob Aaron Harper is scheduled to meet his half in twenty-nine days, and he doesn’t buy a word of that entanglement crap. So what if he and his half were born the same day and share a spooky psychic connection? Big deal. After breaking one too many teenage girls’ hearts, he’ll stick to brawling with the douchebag rugby players any day.
Until the day a new girl arrives at school and threatens everything he takes for granted.
Cold and unapproachable, Amber Lilian hates the growing list of similarities between her and the one boy she can’t read, Aaron: born the same day, both stubborn, both terrified of meeting their halves. . . . All the more reason not to trust him. That she would rather die than surrender herself as her half’s property is none of his damn business. But once lost in Aaron’s dangerous, jet black eyes, she’s already surrendered more than she cares to admit.
Tangled in each other’s self-destructive lives, Aaron and Amber learn the secret behind their linked births and why they feel like halves—but unless they can prove it before they turn eighteen, Aaron faces a lifetime alone in a world where everyone else has a soul mate . . . and he’ll have to watch Amber give herself to a boy who intends to possess not only her body but also a chunk of her soul.
‘Entanglement’ sounded right up my alley, a fun dystopian world with a mythology deeply seated in fringe sciences, but it didn’t quite live up to my hopes. There were so many stereotypes and tropes in this novel, I just about gagged. The mad scientist, the jock with a supposed heart of gold, the woman-abusing bad boy, the hot bitchy girl who feels like she is not worthy of love… need I go on.
Talk about dysfunctional, abusive relationships. I don’t think there was a healthy one in this novel whatsoever. I wanted to put the book down so many times because it was making me sick. The violence, subservitude… not the best read I’ve had this year.
The protagonist Amber was self-destructive and always playing games – so not cute. In fact, I had no love for her at all. Her love interest, Aaron was just as bad – I’m not sure what he was playing at, other than going after something he knew he couldn’t have.
Dan Rix does write great actions scenes and can build tension expertly. I was really intrigued about the mythology of this novel and would have like to learn more about the universe of ‘halfs.’
I think if the first half was condensed and edited heavily to remove the self-destructive behaviour, this would have been fantastic. Much more palatable, and the romance much more believable.
I really liked the second half of the book once I got over myself and ignored all of the violence. I’ve become a big fan of Dan Rix, he comes up with some great concepts, can really write an explosive build up and story climax. He also weaves angst like a pro… but I wish half of the characters weren’t such great big a-holes. Seriously, just about all of his main characters are smart arses.
I think this was his first published novel – and judging from the number on the spine, I’m guessing he had the intention of it becoming a series. But five years on, another 20 novels released and no sign of a sequel. He must have lost interest. I don’t know if I’d recommend this one – it’s an okay read, and the science behind the story is well worth putting up with all the other issues I had with ‘Entanglement,’ but with such troubling relations between characters, I wouldn’t want any young adult thinking it is cool or okay to treat others like that.
Overall feeling: looove the good bits – loathe the nasty ones. Argh! Such a love-hate relationship I have with this!
© Casey Carlisle 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Casey Carlisle with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Casey Carlisle 