On the other side of town, Chase is having problems of his own. The stress of his home life is starting to take its toll, and his social life is unraveling. But that’s nothing compared to what’s really haunting him. Chase has done something cruel...something the perfect guy he pretends to be would never do. And it’s only a matter of time before he’s exposed.
In Ascension, mistakes can be deadly. And three girls—three beautiful, mysterious girls—are here to choose who will pay.
1/2
Review:
This book completely threw me for a loop! For the first hundred or so pages, I didn't really care about the characters who had royally ticked off the mythological Furies. But page after page I grew my curious, and more shocked, at what was to become of our unfortunate teens.
In small town Ascension, one boy tries his hardest to keep up his facade of being the perfect All American Boy, while another is lusting after her best friend's boyfriend, and he is flirting back! Both Emily Winters and Chase Singer have an eventful Winter Break when three gorgeous women decide to turn their lives upside down.
While I was extremely excited to read something that dealt with Greek mythology in the modern world, I was disappointed that this novel started off so slowly. We learn that Chase is hiding something that is too terrible to remember and we see Emily and Zach, her bestie's boyfriend, flirting it up and eventually getting to second base. The book felt at a stand-still, we knew Chase had done something bad, but we didn't know much, and it was hard to feel anything for Emily after 60 or so pages of her making out with an off-limits guy. It isn't until the latter half of Part II where things get interesting. This is when the characters start to become more desperate and show their true colors.
While I did not hate Emily for being a backstabbing best friend, I didn't like her either. That isn't to say that she was a flat character, I just didn't feel anything for her either way. It was Chase Singer who I grew annoyed with. He wasn't a flat character either but I hated how important social status meant to him. He grew up in a trailer home with only his mother and the memories of an abusive father but I feel like his character wasn't fleshed out enough. So much more could have been done with him besides making him obsessed with the appearance of "perfection." My indifference or annoyance with the characters could be related to the writing style.
Miles has a very interesting writing style. I want to label it as passive, but I don't know if that's the correct term. Instead of actively writing about a phone call, she writes from a near future perspective. The phone call happened somewhere off the pages so she describes what the conversation consisted of. I would rather just read the conversation as it happened, not in the past-tense style. It made me feel more disconnected from the world.
Moving on, the plot was enjoyable. There were parts that genuinely were creepy and I loved it. The ending more than anything made up for the slow start. It was shocking, different, and definitely paved the way for a much anticipated sequel. Seeing how both the writing style and character development seemed to improve throughout the novel, I'm sure that the sequel will be a knock out!
I recommend this for readers who love over the top high school drama and Greek mythology.
Sometimes sorry isn't enough....