Review Friday: Split Second by Kasie West

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Pivot Point #2

Goodreads Blurb:

"Life can change in a split second.

Addie hardly recognizes her life since her parents divorced. Her boyfriend used her. Her best friend betrayed her. She can’t believe this is the future she chose. On top of that, her ability is acting up. She’s always been able to Search the future when presented with a choice. Now she can manipulate and slow down time, too... but not without a price.

When Addie’s dad invites her to spend her winter break with him, she jumps at the chance to escape into the Norm world of Dallas, Texas. There she meets the handsome and achingly familiar Trevor. He’s a virtual stranger to her, so why does her heart do a funny flip every time she sees him? But after witnessing secrets that were supposed to stay hidden, Trevor quickly seems more suspicious of Addie than interested in her. And she has an inexplicable desire to change that.

Meanwhile, her best friend, Laila, has a secret of her own: she can restore Addie’s memories... once she learns how. But there are powerful people who don’t want to see this happen. Desperate, Laila tries to manipulate Connor, a brooding bad boy from school—but he seems to be the only boy in the Compound immune to her charms. And the only one who can help her.

As Addie and Laila frantically attempt to retrieve the lost memories, Addie must piece together a world she thought she knew before she loses the love she nearly forgot... and a future that could change everything."

Review:

One general thought of mine I'd like to share before we get into the categories: I wish there was more.  I haven't read many duologies so maybe it's just me being used to longer series' but it seemed like it ended prematurely.  More on that in a little bit.

1.  The Compound and the more fantastical elements.  Keeping with my general theme, I wish there was more.  More development, more details, more information in general.  The Compound is there and we have a vague idea of what it is, what it looks like, and what goes on there but it isn't clear at all.  This kept me from fully investing in the story because it just seemed to meh to be true.  The Compound is a great idea, I just feel like it could have been fleshed out more.  More on the abilities side, I felt like the author did a better job with developing the character's abilities in the first book.  In the second book, it seemed like they were developing rather quickly and just in time to save the day.  It didn't match what was said in the first book with abilities coming to their full potential slowly and in due time.

2.  The characters.  Like with the last book, I really liked all of the characters.  While I didn't connect with most of them, I understood them which is what counts.  I found it really interesting to read through all of their conversations and find out about their abilities, etc.  Their lives were never boring to me and it kept me interested.

3.  The ending.  I'm going to talk about this more in the next bullet but I want to say that I felt it ended really prematurely and wrapped up much to quickly.  It was a good ending, don't get me wrong, but a little more wouldn't have been amiss.

4.  The fact that this series is a duology.  It could just be prejudices in my head but I don't think a duology was the right choice for this series.  Everything could have used so much more development that the third book would have given it.  There were some actions, like how we never get a full explanation from Addison's parents about the programs they had Addison using.  That was a pretty big portion of the plot and it seemed like there just wasn't time for the author to extend that story line.  It was also difficult to pinpoint some of the character's motivations (especially Duke) because there just wasn't enough scenes with them (AKA, not enough time).

The Final Verdict:

A nice series-ender that, although fun and cool, wasn't developed enough for me.  This book felt like a good surface story without much richness to it.

2.5 stars

Quotes:

“A wrong was just righted. Take care of my best friend.” 

“Look at me, making one of your dreams come true. You and your Norm truck driving around Normville."
"You're practically a god.”

“Thank you," he whispered against my hair.
"How did that taste in your mouth?"
He laughed. "Awful.”

“Once Addie let someone in, she was impossible to forget. There was something about her that crawled inside a person and built a nice comfy home there, her goodness expanding until it filled every limb.” 

“He sighed. "Does it get tiring?"
"What?"
"Always thinking you're right."
I smiled. "No, not really. It's other people not realizing I'm right that gets tiring.”

“Dad, she's beautiful. I remember where she was standing.” 

“Thanks for choosing me, Addison.”