Jenn's Review: AWAKE

Summary:  Adisa and Micah's saga continues as the young couple try to heal Micah on their own. Their repeated failures drive Adisa into a desperate but secret alliance with Micah's father and place a strain on the young couple's relationship that may drive them apart permanently. Adisa learns more about the super world, revealing just how alien they are, like their curious bathroom habits and disdain for earthbounds, which leads her to question if a life with Micah is possible. Victor, Micah's super twin, continues his pursuit of Adisa in hopes of fulfilling a prophecy predicting their union is the only way to save Micah's life.

As Adisa deals with the mounting challenges, threatening her relationship with Micah, she discovers her birth parents are alive and want to see her. Pearl, her earthbound mother, and Cyrus, the greatest super being in modern times, have been absent from Adisa's life since they abandoned her in a cotton field when she was only three years old. Does Adisa's reunion with her birth parents hold the key to Micah's cure or will it lead to his death?

Review:  Wow.  Just wow.  If I had any inclinations as to where things were headed after ASLEEP, McNair completely blew me out of the water.  I tried to read through this one slowly, to savour it, but it got to a point where I just couldn't put it down and I was racing to find out what was going to happen.

It's time for Adisa to grow up, and she as some hard lessons to learn.  Some of her emotional upheaval comes from normal things.  She has her first serious boyfriend and she has to learn balance and responsibility when it comes to her family and friends.  She has just realized that her college attending sisters' moral code is not quite the same as the conservative one instilled in them by their parents and she must reconcile the fact that her sisters are old enough to make their own decisions.  She also just recently found out she was adopted.  Then there are some not so normal things, such as the cultural differences between the super being (Sp) world and the earthbound one, the manifestation of  her super powers, the realization that she is the only one who can save her boyfriends life.  Everyone has an agenda for Adisa, all of them have different motives.  The pressure is on, and she is bound to make mistakes along the way, hopefully they won't be too serious to repair.

Because of the cultural differences between the earthbound and Sp world, both Micha and Adisa make unfounded assumptions that could cost them everything. If Micha had taken time to teach Adisa, or had Adisa taken time to ask, more about the Sp world, Adisa would have made more informed decisions. But here I am talking about what the character's should have done, not the author.  That's because, once again, Wendy Raven McNair has brilliantly blurred the lines of reality and supernatural.  Her heartfelt characters are so realistic, that she truly brings the reader into the story.  I read lots of YA fantasy and paranormal but none that is so firmly planted in reality that it's almost ...tangible.

When the book ends Adisa has finally come into her own, though the process was grueling.  It ends openly, but not on a gut-wrenching cliffhanger, leaving McNair plenty of Sp world for Adisa to discover and much still to be resolved. 

If you love YA, I beg you to check out this trilogy, starting with ASLEEP (my review).   It's a beautiful story, expetly told and magnificently written.  I think it's truly an incredible series like nothing I've ever read. I am anxiously awaiting the third and final book, ASCEND.

Final Take: 5/5