Potency

Thank you to Netgalley and Ruby & Topaz Publishing for providing me with a copy of this in exchange for my open and honest review.

Sadly after a few false starts on this book, I have found that it wasn't for me. This story has all the excellent markings of a solid book. Hadley does a great job laying the scene and creating the setting. Where I think this story ran into problems was with the characters and specifically the dialog. I found it stunted and unrealistic. Stunted in delivery and unrealistic in style. Harper, the main character, comes across as a generally normal tom-boy type teen girl. She plays soccer and fights with her mom. To confuse the situation, she is also half alien. Harper also lives within a world plagued by something called Maasai Mara Sleeping Syndrome. You go to sleep and don't wake up. As I said, Hadley has done a great job setting the scene here. It sounds like it could be a fascinating story. It plods along with Harper having unrealistic interactions and illogical emotions. She isn't a likable protagonist, someone I care about and want to get behind. She just existed in the story. She was flat. And, that made me fall flatly out of the story.