ARC REVIEW: Shift by Kim Curran

 

Author: Kim Curran

Pages: 416

Genre: Young Adult

Publisher: Strange Chemistry

Amazon: Shift

Release Date: 4^th September 2012

Synopsis (Goodreads)

When your average, 16-year old loser, Scott Tyler, meets the beautiful and mysterious Aubrey Jones, he learns he's not so average after all. He's a 'Shifter'. And that means he has the power to undo any decision he's ever made. At first, he thinks the power to shift is pretty cool. But as his world starts to unravel around him he realises that each time he uses his power, it has consequences; terrible unforeseen consequences. Shifting is going to get him killed. In a world where everything can change with a thought, Scott has to decide where he stands.

Review: 3 out of 5 stars

Shift by Kim Curran was kindly provided to me by Netgalley for Strange Chemistry.

Sixteen-year-old Scott Tyler is a Shifter, meaning he has the ability to change reality by altering the decisions he has made and have a do-over; he is clueless about these powers until a dare with a so-called friend goes wrong and he comes back to 'current' reality with the beautiful and mysterious, Aubrey Jones rushing him away before the regulators find out what he had done. Using these powers has severe consequences that he is about to discover.

When Scott joins a government agency known as ARES (The Agency for Regulation and Evaluation of Shifters) who specialize in training and guiding young shifters, he finds out ways to control his power and use it for good as there is also a rebel faction known as the SLF (Shifter Liberation Front) who don’t believe these teens need regulating.

Fifteen year-old Aubrey Jones is what is known as a Spotter, someone who tracks the Shifters down for the regulators. She seemed a lot older than her age  from not only her position within the agency but also from her confidence and she didn’t speak like a normal teen, there was a formality about her which made her character seem a lot more mature. I liked the relationship she shared with Scott but felt we could have learnt a lot more about her.

Ms Curran has certainly written an appealing, original and entertaining story with characters that were fascinating but felt could have been further developed and although I am not usually a fan of time altering stories, I found it to be really intriguing, imagine having the ability to alter outcomes.

We are given a lot of information at the beginning of the book, but it was nothing that was overwhelming or difficult to grasp. With the amount of action scenes which started from the very beginning, the pacing flowed well.

An issue I had with this book was the lack of explanation given on why these kids were Shifters, how it all came about - Scott, also occasionally obtained random powers and then lost them with very little reasoning as to why he got them in the first place, I would have liked more information about what was happening or to see his abilities further developed. The villain, Benjo was also a little misplaced; I expected a lot more out of his character than what we got.

I enjoyed Ms. Currans writing, the plot kept me entertained with the suspense and light twists and turns and although I felt each of the characters fell a bit flat it kept me entertained none the less.

Overall, this book has a great premise and a nice amount of action and intrigue and although a few things didn’t mesh well for me there was enough of a story-line to keep me entertained.