Review of STRUCK by JENIFER BOSWORTH

Struck by Jennifer Bosworth
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Mainstream readers, come hither, because I have a feeling Struck may strike your interest. However, since I’m one of those hipsters who chooses to drink milk tea and listen to musicians no one’s heard of (and yes, sarcastic mode is activated here), I was very interested in it initially, but it just didn’t meet my expectations.

While some people are addicted to drugs, love or chocolate, Mia Price has her own obsession: lightning. Whenever lightning strikes, she always feels the urge to go out and soak it all up—and mysteriously, she manages to survive. But when two different factions want her for her abilities for their own purposes such as the end of the world coming in a few days, she finds herself pulled between the two . . . and gets even more confused when a mysterious boy comes in . . .

Yeah, that last sentence also turned me off.

It’s really a shame though, since I was hooked by the blurb before it came out, and I liked the way the story is set up is almost like a Bethesda RPG, whose games I really love. You know—you could be the Courier or the Dovahkiin, in where choosing which side/person to support will guarantee their victory. Each side has its cons and pros, so they aren’t wholly good or evil either. Unlike some people, I didn’t really mind the Christian influences in the cults, since it was presented decently enough. The tarot cards and the Revelations references were also interesting, which made me like the book at the start. And then the special InstaLuv Microwave Meals had to kick in . . .

What makes Mia attracted to Jeremy? I have no clue. The first time they meet, he tries to kill her while she’s sleeping. Their second meeting occurs in school, in where she doesn’t recognize him. The first thing that interests her is his blue eyes, which as a purple-prose like description somewhere which I couldn't recall.
Um, okay. So what else do you like about him, Mia, besides the fact he tried to stab you with a knife . . . and . . . um . . . ?


There is nothing defining their relationship besides physical attraction. In fact, there is no chemistry between them whatsoever. I was completely clueless about the whole romance bit the whole time. In fact, I think the novel would’ve been two times better if Jeremy’s role was simply as a friend. Let’s get this straight with: I am not a huge fan with it comes to romances with books that I usually ignore this aspect, but I felt like a better job could’ve been done.

Mia wasn’t my favorite narrator. I didn’t get some of her decisions, especially the reason why she didn’t just spill the whole truth to her brother—really, what was the whole fuss about?—and why decided to leave him in the dark for almost no reason at all. Yeah, it’s probably because there was a need for more conflict, but I would’ve preferred reading a headstrong main character than frowning in bewilderment about Mia fifty-percent of the time.

The other characters were cookie-cutter stereotypes. If I hadn’t read more than a hundred other YA novels with a similar trope, then I might have been able to read through, but I wish some originality had been given for each of the characters. The only character I actually enjoyed reading about was Prophet, which was sad since I wanted to be rooting for the main character—which epically failed.

On the brighter side though, the author’s description of the apocalyptic world are interesting, and the writing flowed smoothly. While I was a bit hesitant on the idea of Mia’s decent life situation especially when her mother was cooped up in the house, the Venice beach scene was one of the best parts in the story. The ending managed to bring up the rating of the book ever-so-slightly, so it wasn’t one of the worst books I’ve ever read. However, the cons outweighed the pros this time, hence the rating.

In a Nutshell
It might’ve just been me getting too hyped-up for the novel, but however, Struck by Jenifer Bosworth failed to impress me. While other may find this exciting, I was on the ‘meh’ border with it, with my rating of 2.5 stars.

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