Review: Flying (#1) by Carrie Jones

Title: Flying (#1)

Author: Carrie Jones

Published by: TOR Teen

Released: 2016

Source: Library

Summary: GIMME AN A-L-I-E-N-S! WHAT DOES THAT SPELL? ALIENS! Wait, what?

Mana is your typical high school student/cheerleader. She's peppy, she tumbles, and she enjoys her life with her plain jane mom that loves her.

Everything changes when she tries to save the cute drummer boy Dakota Dunham, and he turns out to be an ACID SPITTING ALIEN! Reeling, Mana goes home to discover her house ransacked, her mother missing, and a mysterious man named China, who claims to be her mother's alien hunting partner. What is going on? How can her boring mother be an alien hunter? One thing is clear, Mana must save her mother, and get the truth about what is going on in her world.

My Thoughts: Nope. I did not enjoy this. Did it have potential to be something I would like? Yes, or I wouldn't have picked this up. An alien fighting cheerleader just sounds like a good time. How very misled I was.

My main problem with this book, the reason I disliked it so much, is because I pretty much despised the main character Mana. Despised might be too strong a word, but I really didn't like Mana. I guess a plus for her is that she acted like an actual teenager. She felt like a 16 year old girl. I just found Mana to be extremely annoying, like I wish she would stop talking annoying. It was hard to sympathize with her because I didn't like her. I didn't find her funny or snarky. she was just an irritant.

I also felt like aspects of this book were very judge-y. They came through the mouthpiece of Mana, and gave her an I'm Better Than Everyone Else attitude.

There were some aspects of this book that reminded me of the X-Files, and I wish those parts had been focused on more.

There were aspects of this story that I had kind of figured out from page one, yet it took Mana forever to figure it out. 

There were some unexpected twists that were kind of interesting.

So, I just didn't have fun reading this. It was a chore. If I was in the practice of DNF'ing books, I would have quit this one. Some people could totally love this book, but I wasn't one of them. It could have been a fun, alien hunting time, but instead it was an irritating teenager, doing irritating teenage things, and messing stuff up. Not for me.

BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 2.5/5

No, Just No.