Yzabel / July 1, 2012

Talented by Sophie Davis

My rating: [rating=3]

(The ebook was provided to me by the author herself, after I answered an ARR in the We ♥ YA Books! group.)

I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed the world developed in Sophie Davis’s novel. While it seems to be divided into two clear camps at first, it soon appeared to me that the dichotomy was far from being so evident, and that factions and characters were bound to harbour secrets and hidden standards. The last chapters sure didn’t disappoint me in that regard. I also enjoyed discovering how the Agency works, what kind of jobs its employees perform, as well as how missions are carried—I like to see that such ‘details’ were taken into account. The use of varied Talents offer those agents diverse opportunities, and it was interesting to read about that.

The reason why I’m giving it 3 stars ‘only’ is that I was however left with a lingering feeling of frustration at the themes developed throughout the story. I would have liked to see more of Talia’s challenges regarding her job as a Hunter, her desire for revenge, the means she would employ to do so, the choice she had to make between saving herself or enacting her revenge… I understand that this novel is not a standalone, and that such aspects are likely to be developed in book 2 or 3—in other words, that they’re part of a bigger picture. That’s not what frustrated me. I simply thought, when I read the summary, that they’d be keynotes of the story, and in the end, I felt that they were put aside in favour of the developing love triangle. I think I’d have liked this novel best if the romance part had been left to grow in a more balanced way along what I had expected to read about.

The file also contained recurrent typos, such as inverted words and commas in weird places. Unfortunately for me, I’m too trained to notice those things, and they tend to quickly become annoying.

Other than that, I was glad to be handed out this ebook. I spent good moments reading it.