REVIEW: Struck by Jennifer Bosworth

Struck by Jennifer Bosworth
Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR, 2012
[Goodreads | Amazon]

Mia Price is a lightning addict. She’s survived countless strikes, but her craving to connect to the energy in storms endangers her life and the lives of those around her.

Los Angeles, where lightning rarely strikes, is one of the few places Mia feels safe from her addiction. But when an earthquake devastates the city, her haven is transformed into a minefield of chaos and danger. The beaches become massive tent cities. Downtown is a crumbling wasteland, where a traveling party moves to a different empty building each night, the revelers drawn to the destruction by a force they cannot deny. Two warring cults rise to power, and both see Mia as the key to their opposing doomsday prophecies. They believe she has a connection to the freak electrical storm that caused the quake, and to the far more devastating storm that is yet to come.

Mia wants to trust the enigmatic and alluring Jeremy when he promises to protect her, but she fears he isn’t who he claims to be. In the end, the passion and power that brought them together could be their downfall. When the final disaster strikes, Mia must risk unleashing the full horror of her strength to save the people she loves, or lose everything.

Struck was an interesting read for me; I’m sort of over the whole dystopian thing, but the “it’s the end of the world as we know it”-type books where time is ticking away toward a huge apocalypse hold quite a bit of interest for me. I was also intrigued by the idea of a girl who longs to be struck by lightning, and has already been struck several times. Add to that the religious intrigue – it’s the end of the world so OF COURSE we have a crazy cult proselytizing to everyone and telling them they have to join them if they want to be saved – plus quite a lot of personal family drama surrounding our main character, and you wind up with a book that was pretty engaging from start to finish.

I thoroughly enjoyed the author’s way with words, and the way she built suspense; each of the book parts was labeled according to the days left until this supposed “end of the world” storm hits, which helped you keep track of what was happening and when. Jeremy, the main male character and romantic interest, also has the ability to see things that are going to happen, which also helps keep the reader interested. Or at least it kept ME interested, because I wanted to know if he was right or wrong. There’s a paranormal aspect with this book as well, in terms of the characters’ abilities, and I enjoyed the whole concept behind the abilities and how said abilities came about. I also want to give props for the author’s world-building; the descriptions used to describe a ravaged Los Angeles, and the people’s attitudes was absolutely first-rate, and that also goes for the backstories of the characters and how they came to be the way they are.

My one problem was that it took Mia a very long time – like 300 pages – to figure out what was going on, when I was fairly certain what was going on just a few chapters into the book. Nonetheless, there was enough drama going on elsewhere in the book that it continued to hold my attention. And the part of me that grew up reading cheap romance novels just wants to mention that the kissing scenes between Mia and Jeremy – [SPOILER] aside from the whole “blacking out and falling into a vision” thing [/SPOILER] – were exceptionally well written and, quite frankly, very hot, which is always a plus in my book!

While not being the best book in the world, Struck was an entertaining read that kept me thoroughly interested in what was happening in its pages. Mia is a strong, stubborn girl who tries to do what’s best for those she loves, and makes a lot of mistakes along the way. I appreciated the thought put in to the author’s world-building and the interesting look at the fanaticism of religion in a very dark time. If you’re looking for a well-developed book about the impending apocalypse, I’d definitely recommend this one!