March 2012
32 posts
Sci-Fi for beginners
Angel Eastland knows she’s different. It’s not just her violet eyes that set her apart. She’s smarter than her classmates and more athletically gifted. Her only real competition is Michael Vallant, who also has violet eyes — eyes that tell her they’re connected, in a way she can’t figure out.
Michael understands Angel. He knows her dreams, her nightmares, and her most secret fears. Together they begin to realize that nothing around them is what it seems. Someone is watching them, night and day. They have just one desperate chance to escape, one chance to find their true destiny, but their enemies are powerful — and will do anything to stop them.
This is one of my favorite books to pick up at the beach or read when I’m sick because the story is well paced and the characters are engaging.
When I first read this novel I was expecting a different race or specially gifted people, I wasn’t expecting the twist that is revealed about half way through. I think that the friendships and relationships the main character Angel has with her parents, Mike, and her friends are vibrant and complicated. In reality Luiken captures an early frenemy relationship with Angel and Marianne but it’s even more complicated than the Mean Girl trend of the 2000s. Even her minor characters are fairly well rounded, an admirable trait considering how short the book is.
Violet Eyes has action, romance, and banter (I love good banter) and even some serious feminist qualities. The end challenge that Angel and Mike have to take on has always seemed a little too planned to me, they jump to solutions and are certain of them in ways that I find difficult to follow as a reader. There are so many places Luiken could take the characters at the close of the book, leaving space for imagination with a clear event resolution.
