If you are a teen who enjoys reading YA fantasy books, then you may like these two books. Easter Hutton's life is a mess to say the least. Her parents are divorced and her mother goes through boyfriends as often as night and day. She and her mom live in a temporary trailer park in Florida. In school the students hate her and throw raw eggs at her. As if that is not enough, Easter keeps accidentally astral projecting in the middle of her classes and in the hallways. She also channels other people's thoughts, which can be very embarrassing in public!
In the first book, Homefree, Easter battles these problems. Her astral projecting brings her to interesting places and situations where she meets other teens that have similar powers, including her friends she knew in the past. With a nice teacher's help, she discovers a place for people with powers, called Homefree. The second book, Sensitive, follows her and her friends though the first weeks at Fairless Grove Academy, the headquarters of Homefree. Easter learns more about her powers and realizes she can talk to spirits, and must help settle a misunderstanding from 200 years ago. She also must find her missing mother and help her troubled friend.
I enjoyed Homefree more than Sensitive. The first book contained more of a mystery, and I loved seeing Easter in school and the chaotic life with her mom. There was also more of a story line and I was constantly intrigued. Homefree has an amazing mix of reality and fantasy. I also enjoyed the accidental use of powers. For me personally, I like it better when characters have no control over their powers and do funny things. Both books had a sense of humor and really good figurative language. There was a lot of French in both books, but not so much that it was hard to understand.
Sensitive had more romance in it. Cal and Easter were sweet together. The beginning of this second book was amazing and quite funny and sarcastic. Teleportation was cool, and I liked that the kids each went in separate directions. Even though they were in the same house, they had different jobs to give them individuality. I enjoyed that Sensitive felt like a continuation of the previous book, like another chapter. However, I do feel that both of these should have been combined into one book. I feel like there was not enough material to go into the second book and therefore was stretched out too much. The ending of Sensitive I felt was too sudden and not developed enough.
There are many themes in the two books. There are some heavy topics such as mental health and addiction, but they are not thorough. Homefree more focuses on bullying and friendship while the second book focuses on independence and family, plus romance. I would give Homefree 5 stars and Sensitive 3 stars, which averages to 4 stars for the two of them.
I recommend that readers read both of these books together! Individually they might not be perfect, but together there are enough differences for there to be something for every reader.
Title(s): Homefree and Sensitive
Author: Nina Wright
Publisher(s): Llewellyn Publications and Flux
Pages: 234 pages, 240 pages
Series: Books 1 and 2 out of 2
Rating: 4 Stars
No comments:
Post a Comment