Transparent -- Natalie Whipple
Book 1 of Transparent
I'm almost certain one of the few reasons why I'm not rating this book any lower is because of how readily and easily readable it is. While not the best book in the world, there was so much awkward and wrong with a lot of things that I found myself aggressively rolling my eyes or just blinking at some points. But seeing as how I managed to roll through the entire story so quickly, I have to give it credit for serviceable writing and being fairly entertaining.
Transparent had a lot of up and down moments enjoyability-wise, and there were just a lot of things that didn't really sit well with me, even if this book is based around a mafia family... or something like that. Which is quite disappointing considering how much potential an alternate reality world like this could have had in the long run--a present-day era wherein science has caused extreme mutations in the population and now they just walk around, in every day life like it's a normal thing... cause it is.
As the tagline presents it as an X-men meets The Godfather.
The main character Fiona came off quite over-dramatic and bitchy a lot of the time. I had a hard time relating to her--not that anyone could relate to an invisible girl, but whatevs. And not that any of the characters were easily related to either because they all had their strange behaviors and actions that kind of had a hand in making this book kind of comical.
It's not to say that this book was all bad or anything. I'd just give it a slight 'meh' and move on with my life.
Ten points for a great premise with lots of potential, though I'm afraid that doesn't make up for the stuff that didn't work for me.
An invisible girl being used by her mafia boss father in unspeakable crimes tries to escape the criminal world only to be chased down by said father and his henchmen, including her older brother. Meanwhile, she spends time trying to blend into a small town under a false name even though everyone knows exactly who she is because, how many invisible girls are in existence on a regular basis anyway?
The logic fail was pretty obvious considering the fact that her father is a mafia boss and has resources and followers everywhere. If an entire high school knows who she is, I'm a bit skeptical that her father didn't manage to locate her within the first day or two she was in public. Just sayin'. When you're on the run (not that I've ever been on the run before, but books are vast pits of knowledgeable information), the key is to remain obscure and invisible (no pun intended) and make sure that NO ONE around you KNOWS who you are.
A final quibble I had was with Fiona and how things were NOT resolved between her and her psycho murderous brother. Because I don't care that said psycho murderous brother had all the good intentions in the world, you do not easily forgive someone for flying you thousands of feet in the air and then dangling you by the wrists and threatening to drop you if you don't comply with his demands. With brothers like that, who needs enemies or mafia boss fathers? I'm not understanding why everyone could still be telling Fiona that she should be able to trust Graham even after he almost choked her to death for the sole purpose of threatening her into doing what he wanted, EVEN IF all he wanted her to do was follow his instructions so that he could keep her safe.
I might be wrong, but those are contradictory actions.
And with that, the star rating is close to dropping another half a star.
***
2016 Reading Challenges:
• Goodreads Reading Challenge
• BookLikes Reading Challenge
• Reading Assignment Challenge
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