Review: Devoted

Title: Devoted
Author: Shirlene Obuobi
Release Date: April 13, 2009
Publisher: IUniverse
Cover Designer: Shirlene Obuobi
Age Audience: YA
Genre: Sci-fi
Summary: After waking from a frightful nightmare, sixteen-year-old Abigail Lingston is alarmed to find that she is no longer herself. Her mind is now inhabited by a terrifying entity. Soon after causing a tragic accident, Abigail falls through the Tear into a new dimension, Fosha. At first glance, Fosha seems a perfect haven. But shadowy manifestations of emotion called Reefers terrorize citizens with feelings that should have died long ago. When discovered to be the Heiress, Abigail must quickly orient herself to the ways of Fosha and learn all she can if she is to successfully defeat the Reefers and make Fosha safe again.

My Review:
★★½
I was going to give this ★★, but I'm being generous because Obuobi was only 15 when she started this book.

The premise of this book sounds interesting, doesn't it? It's a unique idea, the Reefers. I'm surprised that this book is so little-known, but that could have to do with the fact that it was self-published.

The writing was good, very descriptive and lively. However, the weak point of the writing was that it was often over-dramatic when attempting to be lyrical. Also, the twists and turns of the plot were never a surprise because of the constantly changing points of view. We never get to feel Abigail's shock when she discovers things, because we already knew about it from a different character pages ago.

Another flaw of this book was that Fosha was too similar to Earth. Fosha is a completely different dimension, so you'd expect it to be more unique. But in one scene, Silver makes a reference to the Easter Bunny. How could he have known about the Easter Bunny? Is there an Easter Bunny in Fosha? What's with that? Also, it would have been nice to get an explanation of how they managed to fit giant wings inside the Foshan's backs that pop in and out at will. That part never made sense to me. There were many other plot holes that I'd go crazy trying to figure out how it made sense.

Also, whoever edited this book did a terrible job. There were more than just the simple punctuation and capitalization errors often present in published books. There were actual spelling errors. There were many, but I think the worst one is in the part where Abigail is washing her plate and she pours "pink liquid soup" on the sponge.

The ending of this book was a crossover between a cliffhanger and just plain confusing. Obuobi said there will be a sequel, but seeing that Devoted was published in 2009, I don't think there will be one anytime soon.