Hooked on Books

I was very disappointed in this book. After seeing all of these 5 star reviews I was expecting a fantastic story which is why I had to ask myself after reading it, did we really read the same book?? I know what I read was not a 5 star book- not even close!

First off, the author starts off writing in this poetic flowery prose that's just awful. This is suppose to be a YA book, not literary fiction for adults. She uses this flowery prose along with way too many unnecessary words to try and describe the city this book is set in and the people in it and it's too much and most of it doesn't even make sense. I didn't get any feeling whatsoever for the setting and people at all. The book then switches to a style of writing more appropriate for children but with snatches of this poetic prose throughout which makes it choppy and hard to read. If it'a a YA book, it needs to be written for a YA audience.

Secondly, I didn't think the story was very realistic at all. These 5 high school boys are basically driven to be vigilantes by some outside energy source that they were struck with. So they leave their house "every"  night around midnight to go to the next city over to fight ruffians and criminals then they sneak back in and go to school in the morning. Ok so that might happen if I really use my imagination however one of the kids is stabbed with a knife and so they end up having to tell their parents about it and the parents are just ok with it! So now they don't have to sneak out. All of the parents support and encourage the kids to go hunt thugs at night even knowing that they might be stabbed or get the hell beat out of them. I'm sorry but never in a million years would parents really agree to that. The story is just not believable at all.

Lastly, the premise of the story is suppose to be about the boys discovering their five senses but there isn't a lot of focus on the senses at all. You're never really given a clear understanding of what their new enheightend senses are and what they actually do. There isn't much focus on the event where they acquired them either.  I think a lot more could have been done with that but the senses are just kind of skimmed over.

So with that said, I'm not sure where all of those 5 star reviews on Goodreads came from. I noticed the same reviewers and ratings are also posted on the author K.N. Smith's website but in my opinion, this was definitely not a 5 star book. From the ending, I also got the feeling that there might even be another book forthcoming but I will not be continuing the series. 

*I received this ARC from NetGalley & Two Petals Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

**On a side note, I'm a little confused about who wrote this book. K.N. Smith, a female, is the author on the copy I received from NetGalley but the Booklikes database has the author listed as someone else entirely, a Peter K. Smith with a different 'female ' name (K.D. Smith), picture (www.booklikes.com/peter-k-smith/author,174508) and website (www.kdsmithauthor.com) then that on Goodreads and K.N. Smith's website (www.knsmith.com/author). ???