3 out of 4 stars
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Morgan Crawford is a 17 year old struggling through life after her whole family is killed in a crash. After waking up from a coma, she struggles with amnesia. She get flashes of memories, but there are no emotions associated with it. Then, Fen enters her life. A transfer student, he captures her eye, and the two fall madly in love. But he isn't quite what he seems. Morgan learns that he is from another planet called Kronos. On Kronos, everyone lives forever leading to an overpopulation problem. To solve it, the inhabitants have learned to send their mind to live through people on other planets. Their bodies are then kept in stasis on Kronos. Fen was exiled from Kronos, but not everyone is happy with him still. Will Morgan be able to accept Fen even though he's an alien? Will Fen stay on Earth with Morgan, finally be allowed to return to Kronos or suffer an even worse fate?
Watchers by Marietta Standlee is also entitled Other Worlds: Earth and is the first in a series. The book is classified as young adult science fiction and is only around 150 pages. With no explicit content, little graphic violence and no swearing this would be very appropriate for younger teens up through adults.
While the premise of the book is not necessarily unique (a girl falls in love with an alien who has taken over a human boy's body), I did enjoy the characters and the fresh touches that the author put on the story. Morgan is not all that she seems either, and that made for an unexpected twist in the plot. The other students at the school are fun as well. Morgan's best friend Bree even makes up for the loss of her family. Every character was lifelike, even the most minor.
The story moves along at a good pace, and it's easy to get involved in. For most average readers, it won't take long to finish this book. That's not to say, though, that the book is too short. I think there is just the right amount of information for this first book. It wraps up nicely but leaves enough questions for the next book in the series that you want to keep reading.
The biggest problem I had with the book was the editing. The first thing I noticed was that there wasn't enough delineation between the paragraphs. It's difficult to tell where one begins and the next ends which is hard on the eyes. Even putting that aside, there were misspelled words all over the place not to mention atrocious punctuation. From dropped letters to homophones to way too many commas, this book will probably drive you nuts trying to read it. Even though I was very involved in the story, I got really tired of seeing "tiered instead of tired" or having commas cutting in the middle of a sentence. This really could use the help of a proofreader at the very least.
I had a great deal of difficulty trying to rate this book. On the one hand, the author knows how to weave a good story; I stayed involved from beginning to end and am actually looking forward to reading the next book. On the other, the editing left much to be desired and absolutely distracted from my enjoyment of the book. So, after much debate, I rate Watchers 3 out of 4 stars. I believe the plot and the talent of the author override the distracting editing enough for a higher score. I recommend this to any fans of alien science fiction that like a good, clean story regardless of age.
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Watchers
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