Book Review: Kinetic by S.K. Anthony

Kinetic by S.K. Anthony

Title: Kinetic

Author: S.K. Anthony

Publisher: Self-published

Publication Date: 9-20-13

Pages: 336

Genre: Urban fantasy

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**Kinetic will be 99¢ until 9/28/13**

Being strong is one thing. Being an unlimited source of power is quite another.

Genetically altered by the Organization, Annie Fox takes down criminals CIA-style with her luminary strength. With nothing to mend but her broken heart, she is relentlessly pursued by her boss Derek Lake. Just when Annie is about to give him a chance, her ex-husband unexpectedly comes out of hiding.

A wanted man, Nick Logan is a cold-hearted murderer who is considered enemy number one, and orders are clear: kill on contact. He is more powerful than ever and threatens the lives of those she holds most dear. His plan? Get his hands on Annie and use her Kinetic energy to destroy them all. When Annie finds herself with an opportunity to end him, she pauses, horrified by the scars covering the face she once loved. A split second that will cost her everything…

**Kinetic is a stand-alone novel. All books in series are part of the same world with the characters intertwined.**

Kinetic by S.K. Anthony is an urban fantasy about something that I’ve never read about before…luminaries. I honestly had no idea what luminaries were, and at first I thought that they were part of the paranormal world, like witches or fairies. But, no, luminaries are like….superheroes.

Normal people with special powers who come together to save the world from the bad guys!

The problem was, I’d found my heart staring at me through one eye, and I’d lost my shit.

Can I just say how much I loved all of the characters in this book? I did think that most of them were pretty static, but I adored Annie, Nick, Kevin…everybody! And I’m super excited by the fact that the next book in the series is going to be focused on Kevin, because he was my favorite character.

I never wanted to be one of those girls again, the ones who live for love or die for it. No, love no longer had any place in my empty chest.

While some people have this listed on Goodreads as a “new adult” novel, I really don’t think that it is. It’s more of an urban fantasy that has two or three adult scenes. So, yes, this book is for 18 , but it’s not new adult or romance at all. The love triangle between Annie, Nick, and Derek is important, but it’s really only a background plot. It’s all about the superpowers!

I really liked how things were constantly happening in this book. I was kept very entertained throughout, but it wasn’t overly action-packed. I did think that it was a little bit predictable, though. There weren’t any big surprises with where the plot was headed, and I knew beforehand which characters were going to turn out to be “bad” and which ones would be “good.” But there was a CRAZY scene at the end of the book that was incredibly intense and had my heart racing, and I definitely did not see what happened in that scene coming. I even might’ve gotten a little bit teary-eyed!

The wounds in my skin had long since healed. The wounds in my heart? There are none. Too many holes had been dug inside for far too long. Nick was that last shovel, and there was nothing left.

One thing that I noticed about this book was that the quality seemed to take a bit of a downward spiral. At the beginning of the book, I was blown away by how awesome it was. But between the middle and the end of the book, I thought that the dialogue was poorly written (it was almost like I could tell that the book was being written, if you know what I mean…the characters weren’t speaking like normal people) and there started to be a lot of plot elements that were way to “convenient.” Like, oh, so-and-so just happened to be somewhere right at this exact moment, and then I happened to have these random files that give us all this information, and we just happen to be related. Stuff like that.

I also thought that the scientific part of the book could’ve been fleshed out a bit more. While I loved the idea behind this book, the plot was a little bit confusing because I couldn’t totally understand why and how, scientifically, certain things were happening. I know that there’s obviously not a scientific explanation for these superpowers, since it’s not real, but I wish that there had been a little more background information given about the confusing things that were going on.

Just as a side-note… I was also not in love with the quality of the paperback book that I was given. The book itself wasn’t well-constructed, and the pages inside of the book were bright white with Times New Roman font. It just made it seem a little “English paper”-y. But the cover is seriously beautiful. I’m obsessed with it.

But while there some things that I might’ve changed about this book, overall I was really impressed with Anthony’s action-packed and unique debut novel, and look forward to continuing on with the series.

You and I aren’t a matter of ifs and whys. You and I are inevitable.

**ARC kindly provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.**

This review is part of the Kinetic blog tour sponsored by Grapevine Book Tours.

Miranda Mowbray

Book Review: Kinetic by S.K. Anthony

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