Betwixt [Paperback]

Tara Bray Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2009

For three teenagers, dark mystery has always lurked at the corner of the eyes and the edge of sleep. Beautiful Morgan D'Amici wakes in her trailerpark home with dirt and blood under her fingernails. Paintings come alive under Ondine Mason's violet-eyed gaze. Haunted runaway Nix Saint-Michael sees halos of light around people about to die.

At a secret summer rave in the woods, the three teenagers learn of their true, changeling nature and their uncertain, intertwined destinies. Riveting, unflinching, beautiful, Betwixt shows a magic as complex and challenging as any ordinary reality.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

When three teens, each haunted by uncanny happenings, receive invitations to a top-secret summer solstice celebration, they expect a typical Portland rave. Instead, they find an elaborate ritual staged to inform them about a secret, powerful nonhuman race to which they actually belong. Eagerness to learn about the race will pull readers through the first 200 pages, which introduce the connections hurling the teens toward the truth. Thereafter, the momentum slackens, with Smith haphazardly doling out facts about the teens’ true physiology and situation, and introducing confrontations with evil renegades that end before they have truly begun. This isn’t advertised as a series launcher, but many readers will emerge hoping for additional installments that clarify hazy plot elements and further develop Smith’s interesting characters—whose matter-of-fact multiculturalism is a bonus. Aspects of this dark fantasy will remind some readers of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight (2005), especially the poetically limned Pacific Northwest setting. But the language in this book is unusually raw, and occasional sexual allusions, often in a leering context, will substantially narrow the book’s audience. Grades 11-12. --Jennifer Mattson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Tara Bray Smith's autobiographical adult novel, West of Then, was published in 2004 to critical acclaim. She was born and raised in Hawaii, and now lives in New York City and Dusseldorf, Germany. Betwixt was Tara's debut novel for young adults, and she is currently working on its sequel, Broken, coming 2010.

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Poppy; Reprint edition (January 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316106933
• ISBN-13: 978-0316106931
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.3 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,567,547 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poorly written realization of an interesting idea, January 14, 2008

By 

A. Rhode (Vancouver, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Betwixt (Hardcover)

Have you ever had a young kid try to explain something complicated? They jump to places without to giving you important information and you have to coax them back into telling you the necessary details. That's how I felt after finishing this book, except unfortunately, I can't ask a book questions...and it wasn't exciting. A lot of people have said this was confusing and I'm glad to see it wasn't just me. The first 3/4 of the book could have been condensed to 1/4 and the end should have been greatly expanded to account for what the author was trying to convey. The supernatural ideas themselves had decent potential, but the reader is left with far too many gaps to fill for it to be satisfying.

There is a lot of swearing, drugs and references to sex in this book. This just struck me as unecessary, at least to this extent. I'm not a stranger to any of these things (well, maybe hard drugs), but I don't expect a young adult novel to be crammed with these themes. The characters were so inconsistent and poorly developed that swearing certainly wasn't going to add to their authenticy. It creates a catch-22 where the language is too old for young readers, but the story lacks the sophistication for older readers.

I have other series where an awful first book is redeemed by the sequels. There is still that potential here, but this book isn't worth reading unless the future sequels are greatly improved over this first effort.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars the good out weighed the bad, but barely, November 29, 2007

By 

Melissa Henstra "Glittersparrow" (Florida) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Betwixt (Hardcover)

"It's why give us wings in their pictures. it's why they make us prettier then them. Power is very heavy."

I love books with elaborate plots a slowly developing story lines, and loads of detail. While that is what you get with Betwixt. The problem is, instead of adding to the reading experience, all these aspects come together to make somthing of a mess. The narrative shifts between the three main characters, but the change often comes without warning. This was confusing and limited my ability to connect emotionally to the characters. There is a lot of information to absorb here, some of which is over explained to the point of extreem redundancy. while other points that to me seemed important where left by the wayside, leaving me with a strong sense of HUH?

Betwixt is the first book in a series, so I understand the need for expansiveness, but I wish Betwixt had passed through the editors hands a few more times before hitting shelves. So is it worth the read. Answer YES. Reason, because I found that in the last, um... 142 pages the story tightens up and it's an easy and enjoyable ride to the end. At the end I was left with a feeling of cautious optimism for the forthcoming sequel.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, thought-provoking plot; at times confusing, November 15, 2007

By 

Chelsea (Florida, US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Betwixt (Hardcover)

I love the plot and storyline of this book. As Ondine, Nix, and Morgan come to terms with their unique place in the universe, so too does the reader come to explore the implications of their fates, as well as his or her own. The internal struggles alone in this one book could be expanded into a library of critical thoughts and essays. As unformulaic as Betwixt is, there are points at which the reader may become confused. There were a few places where I had to go back and reread a passage several times over. Sometimes I would remedy the confusion, but there were one or two places where I had to accept defeat and move on. It takes some time for the plot to take off. Much of the first chapters are spent in dialogue. I would have liked to have seen a more detailed exploration of the time Nix and Ondine spent together before the solstice. Tara Bray Smith explains how they shared so much during this time without the usual human means of communication, and I wish she had offered more insight into their connection. Perhaps in the sequel...

Overall, I highly recommend this book, but only if you have the patience to wait for the sequel, because it will be impossible to read only this one.