Review: Manifest

Manifest
Artist Arthur
Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises, Limited
Release Date: August 1, 2010
rating 7/10

When fifteen-year-old Krystal Bentley moves to Lincoln, Connecticut, her mom's hometown, she assumes her biggest drama will be adjusting to the burbs after living in New York City.



But Lincoln is nothing like Krystal imagined. The weirdness begins when Ricky Watson starts confiding in her. He's cute, funny, a good listener—and everything she'd ever want—except that he was killed nearly a year ago. Krystal's ghost-whispering talents soon lead other "freaks" to her door—Sasha, a rich girl who can literally disappear, and Jake, who moves objects with his mind. All three share a distinctive birthmark in the shape of an M and, fittingly, call themselves the Mystyx. They set out to learn what really happened to Ricky, only to realize that they aren't the only ones with mysterious powers. But if Krystal succeeds in finding out the truth about Ricky's death, will she lose him for good?

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this one. There were times when I loved it and times when I was asking myself why I was even reading this. It was the aspects of the book, the plot, characters, writing, that I either loved or hated.

The plot was one thing that I did like. It was original and creative. Krystal, Sasha and Jake all have special powers, and are called Mystyx. Krystal's power is talking and listening to the dead. She has to help a ghost solve his murder while figuring out everything about Mystyx and her power. It was a good mystery, and left off with a major cliffhanger.

The characters, on the other hand, I did not love. It wasn't really all of them, just Krystal. She was self-centered and just a sown right snot at times, especially the beginning. The entire time I just wanted to tell her to grow up and get over herself. The secondary characters, though, weren't bad. I actually liked some of them like Ricky, Jake and Sasha. Although, nobody sounded like they were really fifteen. It felt like they were closer to twelve instead.

So, overall, Manifest was enjoyable but I didn't love it. It had its ups and downs; good and bad. I mean, I'm not going to go start reccomending this to everyone, but I'll definitely check out the sequel.