Review of Aversion by Kenechi Udogu

Aversion came out last month and I got my hands on it just so I could share it with you guys - aren't I nice? Check it out:

For Gemma Green’s first time, things should have been straightforward. Find your subject, hold their gaze and push a thought into their head to save them from future disaster – Aversion complete. A pretty simple process given that the subject was to have no recollection of the experience. But Russ Tannerdoesn’t seem to want to forget. In fact the more she tries to avoid him, the more he pushes to get to know her. Gemma knows she has a problem but is she facing the side effects of a failed Aversion or has the school’s tennis champ really fallen for her?

Genre: YA Fantasy








Excerpt:

At first Russ looked mortified at my question but he broke into slightly nervous laughter when he saw a smile tugging away at the corner of my lips. Why couldn’t I have kept a straight face when I said that?

When he finally stopped laughing, he picked up the menu again and resumed playing with it. “I have always noticed you, Gemma. You probably don’t remember the few times we spoke…”

“We’ve never spoken…” I began to protest but he cut me short.

“Last year on that field trip to see the War Memorial in Yates, you asked me to move over so you could get to your seat.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “That doesn’t count.”

“Well, there was that time you couldn’t reach a library book and I helped you get it. That was last year as well.”

My mouth almost dropped open in shock. Those moments were barely memorable. I would never have counted them as mentionable in any conversation. It almost sounded like he…no, it wasn’t impossible. Russ Tanner did not have a crush on me. This verbal diarrhoea had to be a result of whatever it was I did to him. I could sense that he thought he was telling the truth but surely he couldn’t be. Why would he notice me? And I was not thinking that in an ‘I’m-a-nobody-and-I-feel-sorry-for-myself’ way. I was a social nobody but I knew I wasn’t unattractive. I had caught boys looking at me even before I turned twelve and informed Dad that I needed a bra, so it couldn’t just be my chest they were looking at. But I was nowhere near as pretty as some of the girls he hung out with. I didn’t wear makeup like most of them did (lip balm did not count) but I allowed myself the little vanity of stud earrings and ensuring my hair was as healthy looking as it could be. Maybe Russ had a thing for pretty hair and silver studs.

“I wish you’d stop looking at me like that. Like I’m talking a load of nonsense,” Russ’s tone was convincingly hurt and I almost felt bad for him. But I had to remember what was happening here and try to gently steer him away from me.

“Look Russ, I know you think you want to be my friend but I assure you, this won’t work. We don’t have the same type of friends…what am I saying, I have no friends and we both know yours will not like me. If for some unimaginable reason I decide to hang out with you some other day, the only way we can talk in peace is by meeting up in places like this, where no one will know us. Do you really want that? What are you going to say to your friends when they ask where you’ve been? I don’t know how else to convince you that us,” I pointed at the both of us, “isn’t practical.”

“I don’t want practical. I want you.”

I don’t think he intended to say those words out loud because he gasped at the same moment I did and then he turned an unnatural shade of red. This was way more serious than I had thought and I had no clue what to say in response to his unexpected confession. Whatever I had messed up had to be fixed fast.Aversion is the first in the Mentalist series following six months of the life of Gemma Greene, a girl with the ability to sway someone's mind and prevent them from steering off the track their life is meant to take. Her life is laid out for her from birth to death until she averts the mind of Russ, one of the popular kids in her high school who suddenly has a strange attraction to her. From then on her life becomes one of secrets and surprises - growing from a simple high school romance to a deadly conspiracy that threatens to change Gemma's fate forever.

The novella starts out with about three or four pages of pure background. When I first started reading it I thought it was so useless - and honestly it kind of bugged me but around the half way mark of the book, patterns started to emerge in her writing that made me go "ohhhhhh, I get it". One thing that worried me was the voice. Kenechi is writing from the perspective of a fifteen year old girl. I thought she nailed it to be honest. There were word choices here and there that I had to stop and reread in my teenage voice but it was very well written.

The plot itself was quite mind blowing. I was geared up from a will they-won't they-forbidden teenage romance and it turned around and became this full blown conspiracy that encompassed her and dragged her romance into the middle without warning. I like being surprised. It was a good kind of twist that I didn't see coming.

I am anxiously awaiting the second book in there series.

You can buy Aversion on Smashwords, Kobo, and on Amazon

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