Sunday, October 7, 2012

Breaking Point - Jess Bowen


Breaking Point (The Order of the Elements, #1) by Jess Bowen

Quick & Dirty:
  • Beginning is a bit messy but the story straightens itself out.
  • Not a lot of action, it’s all about the characters and relationships.
  • Worth adding to your (ebook) ‘to be read’ pile, also worth keeping an eye out for her future work.
Long & Wordy:
This book is a YA Romance and delivers in that department. It is very appropriate for younger audiences with a few heavy kisses being the most graphic it gets. That being said, about 85% of the book revolves around these relationships and the characters so if you like books that are action packed and fast paced this isn’t a good book for you.
The book is a romance with some familiar fantasy plot devices. Most of these are given a spin so they don’t feel used and old. The author avoids huge info dumps to explain these by having all the characters dance around giving real answers in the beginning of the book. While this gets a bit tedious and irritating I also appreciate not feeling stuck reading page after page explaining everything around the main characters.
This dancing around and not giving real answers coupled with repeated second guessing by the main characters really makes the first few chapters drag. I believe this is Jess Bowen’s first book though, so this can be overlooked because after a clunky and uncertain beginning the story flows rather smoothly.
For adults looking at this book: Adults tend to be wicked cynical and will probably find a lot of things in here hokey. But really if you’re reading a YA romance you should expect that, deal and don’t be mean.
This is a part of a series and because of that I have a few worries about it’s future. The big issue for me is that the author is planning a five book series, and this book already moved a bit slow I don’t think I could make it through them all like that. The story that has been laid down so far doesn’t feel like it can be dragged out that far BUT if she’s saying she wants five then she probably has a plan so I can cross my fingers and hope that it works.
The other main concern about the series is that she’s made the main characters so incredibly strong she’s already had to use what I think are cheap tricks to add a little excitement to the mix.  I think she’ll be getting into comic book type antics real soon.
This was more of an irritant than anything, once the author introduced the idea of a ‘breaking point’ she used it over, and over, and over. It became very redundant and I’m hoping the next book “Trapped” doesn’t follow the same pattern, that would get old very fast.
With some effort I feel this book could have been whittled down by about 100 pages and still have been just fine. If it got completely mangled and stripped it could be the first 2-3 chapters of the next book. Most of this book felt like a setup for the next one so I’m hoping book two will deliver.
Some people may consider this to be a spoiler so don’t read this paragraph if you’re touchy about spoilers. I think that some of the relationships are very forced. I think that there were some hinted at that seemed to be growing but that were cast aside because they had a connection with another person…may or may not include love, but there’s a connection. What? Really? … I apologize if that doesn’t make much sense I wanted to avoid a spoiler as much as possible.
I did like this book. I am looking forward to the second book of the series, and to any future books Jess Bowen writes, I think she has a lot of potential.
I don’t think this book is worth the price they are asking for the paperback edition BUT if you read ebooks then go for it, I feel that price is much more reasonable.
This is her site with links to purchase on the right: http://theorderoftheelements.com/
3.5/5
***This was received as an ARC, this did not influence my review or rating of the book.***

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