Brutally Honest Reviews™

The Gifted

Word Count: 2564

Title: The Gifted

Genre: Science Fiction

Blurb:

Two girls. Two separate lives.

Two different sides of the same coin.

In a world ravaged by nuclear warfare, a new society has risen in what remains of Afro-Eurasia. A capital city, known simply as the City, is established in the center of the continent, with 125 independently-run sectors fanning out from it. And in the 13th Sector, two fifteen year old girls carry on with their drastically different lives, unaware that soon, everything is going to change.

ELAYNE WOODSON always thought she was just an ordinary girl. Like everyone else her age, she is busy preparing for the Examination, the tests administered to fifteen-year-olds that determine their whole future. She knows that the results will change her life. But when her test goes drastically wrong, her life does change, but in a way she never expected.

REL always knew she was anything but ordinary. Most obviously, she's homeless, an orphan, and a runaway, living on the streets and surviving because of her reliable friends and resourceful nature. However, she hides from everyone else a secret: ever since she was little, she's been able to do strange, inexplicable things--things that shouldn't be possible.

Elayne and Rel. Two girls who have no clue that the other exists. Yet they are connected in a way no one would have expected. And soon, their separate worlds are about to collide in an explosion that will change everything they know... forever.

~

Starting Points: 30

Cover: After reading the title and the summary I still don't think it fits. Looks like it's a mediocre fan cover for the Hunger Games,  but it also isn't horrible so I won't penalize it either.

Title: Yeah, it doesn't fit to me either and also it reminds me of that horrendous TV series that's coming out regarding the "X-Men" and their new TV universe. It looks like plain garbage, mad corny, and super melodramatic. If anyone needs a good laugh or just wants to cringe (for some reason) please type in "X-Men: Gifted Trailer" in your Youtube search bar. You'll thank me. (-1)

Summary: "A mess"-- is the most simple and polite way to describe this summary. You didn't ask for summary help but since this summary might actually be passable to some people because they just don't know better or they have bad taste or...reasons?--I will give my unwarranted opinions on why I hate this. First off, the thing is super jumbled and the flow stinks. Horribly. Every paragraph seems like the summary restarts itself just so it can introduce new main characters. It was so jarring and bizarre that I actually had to stop and reread the first paragraph and make sure that I had read it right. This is an issue because it feels like the summary continues to have this abrupt beginning right after it jolts to an end. It's like an unbreakable conga line where everyone's human legs suddenly gets replaced by a Satyr's, which have also been placed on backwards. Super specific and the image is disgusting, yet it's still horrifically true.

-Too much exposition that is easily forgotten once the next paragraph starts yammering about something else that seems completely out of place.

-There are far too many phrases thrown in that are so overused that I audibly rolled my eyes when I first read it. Look, I'll even subtract a point for every cliche phrase I can pick out:

-"Two girls. Two separate lives." (-1)

-"Two different sides of the same coin." (-1)