Vestige

Author: Deb Hanrahan
Goodreads Rating: 3.77
My Rating: 2 Stars
Pages: 260
Reviewed by: Nicole

EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEMCivil Authorities have issued a Civil Danger Notification Until Further Notice.
The following message is being transmitted by the request of The United States Government. An unknown number of citizens have gone missing. Authorities are trying to locate the missing persons. Residents are asked to stay in their homes. If you must go out, do not travel alone and carry proper identification.
Please do not call 911 to report missing persons. Emergency Call Centers and local law enforcement agencies are no longer fully staffed. The United States Military has been dispatched to assist local authorities.
This notification applies to all receiving this broadcast. Please stand by for further instructions._________________________________________________
In the Midwestern suburb of LaGrange, something is amiss. Over a twenty-four-hour period, all the children under the age of thirteen along with many adults have disappeared without explanation. It doesn’t take long for those left behind to learn that this tragedy is part of a global event. As people panic, civilization begins to crumble. Luckily, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Daniel Grimshaw, has a plan to restore order. But first, every remaining person must be accounted for and tagged with a mark on their right hand.
Unaware of his responsibilities, seventeen-year-old Micah has been preparing for this day. His mother trained him and provided him with the proper tools, but she neglected to tell Micah about the family legacy, his legacy. Now that his mother is among the missing, will Micah ever discover who he is, or what he needs to do to save what’s left of humanity from the hellfire of perdition?
Vestige is the first book in a two book series.

I had really high hopes for this book, and I think that may be why I was lead to such a low rating. I got to a point in this book were the only reason I kept reading on was because I was hoping that it would get better and I would get an explanation for the goose-bump inducing description. I was mostly disappointed on both fronts.

My biggest problem with this book was no believability, I think that Hanrahan could have pulled this off, but I couldn't connect to the characters. I really did try, but the dialogue and descriptions and actions didn't match up with the characters. 

When we first meet Micah, he's this punk kid that skips school and doesn't care about anyone or anything, but then he meets Clarke, and all of the sudden he cares about things. The dialogue between them was unrealistic too. Its seemed like "Hi, I just met you and my family is missing, but lets hang out instead of finding out where my family is." It seemed so superficial.

I would have tolerated the the kinda bad dialogue, but then the actions of the characters seemed to go against what they were characterized as or there wasn't any descriptions of those actions at all. I understand that descriptions can be distracting at times and yes, some people may skim over them, but for me I need that because if all I can visualize is two people talking face to face, when there is supposed to be more going on, all I can see is the Sims game where people are supposed to be in relationships or hate each other and they still flip their hair.

There was one scene that Clarke was supposed to be steaming mad at her mother who had walked out on her family to mysteriously re-appear during the crisis. Her mother, aptly named Lilith, just shows up at her house where Clarke and Micah are at the time. Clarke launches into a screaming fit with this boy whom she has only just recently met stands on, and when her mom asks who he is, she stops what she's going and has a perfectly polite introduction.

I really wish that I had liked this book more. Deb Hanrahan was kind enough to send me this book in return for my review, and on top of that had the grace to email me and thank me for finishing it even though I didn't like it very much. In a time when the relationship between Bloggers and Authors can be a tense one, I can't even begin to tell you about how much I appreciated it. It may have just been me, but you should still give this book a chance and see if its right for you.