ACID

What started out as a strong premise with lots of potential soon devolved into mediocre, stereotypical YA mess. Jenna was a strong, take no prisoners, tell you to go to hell female main character. She had a brain, thought for herself, and didn't make excuses or spend hours crying into her hoodie. Yay! A character I could love. And then...then a sweet fluffy puppy boy was introduced. Yeah, sure the boy had his own angsty issues, but really he was there for one reason and one reason only. To allow Jenna to descend into a gooey puddle of I must save the boy emotion. Literally everything she thought and did became all about Max, the boy she's known for all of 5 minutes. When they're on the run from ACID and Max is suffering with whatever illness/withdrawal, all she thinks about is finding something to help him. When she's being handcuffed and led back to prison all she wonders about is how Max is doing, how he's being treated. I was almost thankful that ACID wiped her memories away again because it meant I didn't have to listen to Jenna whimper about Max for a few pages. Of course then she gets her memories back and it starts all over again. When she finds out that her mother wasn't her biological mother and in the process meets her bio mom? Jenna is all oh, ok that may take some getting used too but what if Max is being tortured in prison?

So with all of this naturally Jenna decides she must be a part of the final, “climatic” mission by the resistance. Right? I mean of course she has to be. Because not only must she save the boy (again), but she is the only one who could possible figure out ACID's plan and warn everyone and bring down the General. How the resistance movement ever survived without her is a wonder.

The ending is a pretty much a series of cute little tied bows. Big Bad ACID is brought to its knees. The leaders are imprisoned. Life is slowly getting better. And of course Jenna got her boy and lived happily ever after.

So much wasted potential.