Available:*
Item Barcode | Collection | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33607002671249 | Young Adult | BOSWORT | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
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.
Author Notes
Jennifer Bosworth lives in Los Angeles, California, where lightning hardly ever strikes, but when it does she takes cover. She is the writer half of a writer/director team with her husband, Ryan Bosworth. Learn more about her at www.jenniferbosworth.com.
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 10 Up-Mia Price has been struck by lightning countless times; she actually enjoys the experience. Her repeated brushes with electricity have given her powers that she neither understands nor knows how to use. The teen moves to Los Angeles not long before the largest earthquake in recent history nearly destroys the city, leaving it in chaos. Mia, her brother, and their mother, who is suffering from Acute Stress Disorder, are fortunate to live in an area where the houses still stand. In the aftermath of the disaster, a man who calls himself Prophet is using fear and religion to try to control the city by claiming to have a direct line to God. When Mia and her brother finally return to school, she meets the Seekers, another faction vying for power. Both the Seekers and the Prophet's Followers are trying to get Mia to join them, and she wants nothing to do with either group. Her life is further complicated by the arrival of hottie Jeremy, who is mysterious, psychic, and may or may not be on Mia's side. As the story builds toward a final battle, Mia struggles to find her place in this new world. With a complex plot, several intriguing characters, and a believable future L.A., this novel should earn a spot on supernatural romance shelves. Drinking, drug use, and Mia's sexual exploration make it most suitable for mature readers.-Angela J. Reynolds, Annapolis Valley Regional Library, Bridgetown, NS, Canada (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
The Los Angeles of Bosworth's post-apocalyptic vision is doubly damned. First, the city is brought down by a massive earthquake. Then, as the story opens four weeks later, the countdown to the real apocalypse has begun. The rubble is contested by the Followers of Prophet, a quasi-Christian end-times movement that rules the airwaves, and the Seekers, a cult that brands its members and follows the prophecies of a gypsy. Caught between is 17-year-old Mia Price, a self-described "lightning addict" who has survived innumerable direct strikes and craves more. She carries what the Seekers call "the Spark" and is seen by both sides as the key to the approaching cataclysm. Somewhere in the mix, there's Jeremy, a stalker and maybe worse, who is also the only person asking nothing of Mia except to stay out of the fray. Bosworth's debut catches attention with vivid descriptions and a snazzy premise that speak to her screenwriting background. But the supporting characters are, by and large, two-dimensional, and the book's forward momentum is halted by Mia's inaction and emotional paralysis. Ages 12-up. Agent: Jamie Weiss Chilton, Andrea Brown Literary Agency. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Excerpts
Excerpts
1 I don't sleep much. An hour here. Two hours there. Chronic insomnia, it's one of my more tolerable lightning strike aftereffects. Not as bad as the veiny red scars that cover me from neck to toes, or the burning in my chest that flares hotter when I get a little emotional. Insomnia? Eh. It could be worse (and usually is). Most people wish they had more hours in the day. I keep almost the full twenty-four. When I go to bed at night, it's not with the intention to sleep. If sleep happens, great. If it doesn't, well, that's something I've gotten used to. So when I opened my eyes and saw a guy standing over my bed, I had to assume I'd finally fallen asleep. And when I noticed the shiny silver knife gripped in his hand--the kind of pretty, decorative blade that has no practical application but murder--I decided this was not a dream I wanted to see through to the end. It would have been nice to stay asleep a bit longer, but now I was going to have to wake myself before Nightmare Boy used his knife to gut me. "Wake up, Mia," I told myself in a voice that came out hoarse and scratchy, like it would have if I'd actually awakened. The guy startled back from my bed. He dropped the knife and it fell straight down and stuck in the wood floor with a thunk . Must be sharp. He scrambled to yank it free, but looked unsure what to do with it after that. His face was in shadow, but his wide, white eyes and jerky movements told me he was as scared as I was supposed to be. As far as nightmares went, he wasn't too bad. I decided to stay asleep. I closed my eyes, hoping I'd open them to a new dream. But there were no more dreams that night, only Nightmare Boy's soft, retreating footsteps. When I opened my eyes again, feeling as though I hadn't slept at all, it was the morning I'd been dreading. The morning when my brother, Parker, and I would return to school for the first time since the quake. We had a dream dictionary kicking around the house somewhere. If I consulted it, I was pretty sure it would confirm my suspicion that a knife in your dream was a bad omen. Not that I needed an omen to give me the heads-up that this day was going to suck. As I dragged myself out of bed, I noticed a small split in the floor, right about where Nightmare Boy's knife had lodged itself in the floorboards. Strange. Then again, there were plenty of other little cracks and splits on the old floor of my restored attic bedroom. I put thoughts of the dream away. I had bigger problems--real problems--to worry about. I didn't know what to expect back at school, but if the changes that had taken root throughout the rest of the city were any indication, I should probably give in and expect the worst, as usual. Thanks for the warning, Nightmare Boy. Not that it'll do me any good. Copyright (c) 2012 by Jennifer Bosworth Excerpted from Struck by Jennifer Bosworth All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.