Review by banevius -- Opaque by Calix Leigh-Reign

[banevius]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Opaque" by Calix Leigh-Reign.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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Opaque by Calix Leigh-Reign is the first book in a series about a sixteen-year-old teenager named Adam Caspian. In the beginning, Adam is a troubled teen who thinks very little of others and tries extra hard not to fit in. He has an unhealthy and lustful obsession with his mother, and he displays sociopathic tendencies. The arrival of a new student, Carly Wit, at school seems to shake him. Adam quickly learns that he, just like Carly, is descended from a Russian bloodline and has supernatural abilities. Fittingly, individuals in this descended group of people are called Descendants. Carly and her mother explain to Adam the threat the Descendants face from a group called the Iksha. This sets the stage for Adam to decide whether or not to love or to hate, resulting in an outcome that will affect all Descendants.

There were several things I liked about this book. Most of all, I liked Leigh-Reign’s use of the five senses to describe everything. Her use of the sense of smell is particularly effective. I also felt engaged with the exciting and unpredictable nature of the story. The various plot turns kept me interested to see what would happen next. Lastly, while Leigh-Reign did a phenomenal job with details and descriptions, I especially liked how she used dialogue to move the story along.

There were a few minor things that I didn’t like about this book. First, a few of the transitions to show the passage of time seemed insufficient. I felt that some of these transitions could’ve been executed better. There were also sections of dialogue in which I was unsure who the speaker was. Leigh-Reign used a lot of dialogue to move the story along, but in multiple instances, the speakers were not sufficiently identified to help the reader follow the conversations better. Lastly, multiple lines are written in Russian, and no translations are provided. I understood that some of these were intentional to help the reader see things more clearly from Adam’s point of view. Since he did not understand Russian, this made sense. Nevertheless, I felt a few more translations would’ve helped.

As I read this book, I noticed similarities to the Twilight series and the City of Bones series. Leigh-Reign has done a great job introducing a new race of people with supernatural abilities in this book. She has also included the elements of teen angst and young love. Fans of franchises that feature supernatural characters, along with these elements, would most likely enjoy Opaque.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Opaque, but I noticed multiple grammatical and punctuation errors throughout the book that make me believe this book could use another round of editing. This book contains much borderline profanity and some non-borderline profanity. A few erotic scenes, though very mild, are too suggestive for me to be able to recommend this book to a young adult audience. Also, due to the violence described in a few instances, I would recommend this book to anyone aged eighteen or older. Because I really enjoyed this book and liked how well the story flowed, I’m rating this book 3 out of 4 stars, and I’m looking forward to reading the next book in this series.

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Opaque
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[Elvis Best]

The supernatural aspect of this book sounds interesting. I enjoyed reading your review. Great job!

[AlexisLib]

I read your review after seeing some of your forum posts and I was curious to see your take on this book. It looks like we had similar reactions and opinions! I enjoyed this book but it definitely has uncomfortable aspects that some readers will not like. Great job on this review!

[banevius]

The supernatural aspect of this book sounds interesting. I enjoyed reading your review. Great job!

Thank you so much for your reply!

[banevius]

I read your review after seeing some of your forum posts and I was curious to see your take on this book. It looks like we had similar reactions and opinions! I enjoyed this book but it definitely has uncomfortable aspects that some readers will not like. Great job on this review!

I'm also interested to see what other people thought. It's especially interesting to compare notes and find similarities and also see things that someone else observed that I didn't think of.