18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Can't put it down read for me and my pre-teen!, August 24, 2010
This review is from: The Candidates (Delcroix Academy, Book 1) (Hardcover)
I am in love with this book! My almost-teen daughter and I couldn't put it down and are desperate for book two! It has all the elements of a great story - the excitement of the paranormal, the romance of a love triangle, and a teen girl's struggle to make the right choices when good and evil seem to collide. Even better, the story comes alive through the extremely engaging voice of Dancia, a refreshingly innocent heroine, and a host of fabulous supporting characters. You might not always agree with Dancia's choices, but you'll be rooting for her all the way!
My daughter is not one who devours every book, but she begged to stay up late so she could finish it (completing the longest uninterrupted reading session she has ever had). As a mom, I really appreciate that this book offers the thrill needed to grab my daughter, without the raciness that would demand a parental veto. Well-written, gripping and altogether delightful read from a great new author. Encore, encore!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
~not giving up.... yet~, February 21, 2011
This review is from: The Candidates (Delcroix Academy, Book 1) (Hardcover)
****mild spoilers****
This is another one of those books whose story isn't as good as the cover portrays. The premise is fantastic and there were glimpses of what could possibly be greatness but those glimpses aren't really built upon. I'm hoping this is just the set up for a great series. Our main character Dancia drove me crazy for a good portion of the book. She goes on and on and on and on about one of the guys in her life (Cam) then she turns around and has her first kiss with another guy (Jack) and completely ignores him and the friendship she knows they have together. She also ignores all the warnings he's giving her about the oddities at the school. Dancia is completely blinded by Cam. Irritating. Is it 14yo behavior? Maybe but I still don't like it. Jack is probably my favorite character in the book. He's dark and mysterious but at the same time he's sweet and you can tell his feelings for Dancia are growing and they are real. The way the book ended I can't be certain that he'll be in the next book much and that's a disappointment. The fantastic Cam (Dancia's obcession) left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I can't figure if he's a good guy, bad guy or one of those guys who thinks he's doing good but is kept in the dark and in reality he's doing bad. Dancia's new friends at school are who I'd really like to see have some development in the next book. They bring a bit of fun to the book but weren't in it enough for me. I guess I'll pick up the next book in the series but I won't be waiting as eagerly as with other books.
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Did I miss the point or something?, December 19, 2010
This review is from: The Candidates (Delcroix Academy, Book 1) (Hardcover)
Also appears on The Screaming Nitpicker.
Since childhood, Dancia has had a strange power. When she gets upset, things happen. Like when a guy threatens her grandmother at the hospital, he gets thrown into a wall and ends up in a coma. She tries to fly under the radar and not make friends so that she wouldn't have anyone to defend. Then comes an invitation to the famous Delcroix Academy, a school that has turned out some pretty well-known people. With insistance from her darling grandmother and a convincing argument from a boy she's developing a serious crush on, Dancia accepts the invitation and starts to make friends, including Jack Landry. Once Jack starts pointing out the strangeness of the academy to her, Dancia wonders if there is more going on at the school than meets the eye.
The cover of this book is striking and the summary is too, in its own special way. I never had the opportunity to read this book until a friend bought it and gave it to me on loan so I could read it. The first four chapters did not capture me, so I put it away for a few months and got back to it only when it was finals week, I needed a book to read, and had nothing left that I hadn't read other than this book. No more books are going to get loaned from that friend for a while because that is now four awful books she has given me in a row.
I disliked Dancia. The people around her care more about her than she cares about them. She decides to hate one girl (Perfect Girl, later given the name Allie) for absolutely no reason and even her friends get no nice treatment. At one point, her friend Esther is described as "clucking" when she is trying to comfort Dancia about something. The connotations of words matter and you do not use the word "clucking" when describing a friend unless you're trying to make the narrator mean. I kept having to tell myself, "She's just fourteen, you were just as bad when you were her age" but I stopped doing that after a while because a reader should not be forced to use an excuse like that for as many times as I had to. Even when I was fourteen and an absolute monster, I wasn't as bad as she gets at points in this novel. Dancia does not think for herself at all and I just could not stand her.
People in the novel kept calling Dancia tough and honest and great, but I never saw what they were talking about. All I found was a girl who was obsessed with a fake boy, decided to hate a girl she didn't know for no good reason, and needed a serious attitude adjustment. I disliked almost every character for one reason for another; even Jack, the character I could stand the most, did a lot of stuff that made me angry.Worse yet was the portrayal of almost any girl who was not Dancia. Catherine? Control freak bully who puts down Dancia for not being from a good family like she is. Anna? Jealous ex-girlfriend who makes it obvious that she doesn't want Dancia and Cam near each other. In this book, if you're female and your name isn't Dancia Lewis, you're either a mean girl or a clucking friend. (Yes, I am sticking with the clucking! That was awful.)
One technique I use when reading to make sure I get as much from it as possible is to stop reading and go over the major events of the novel. This helps me remember what happened for when I review the book later and it makes me remember the book. When I pulled that technique for this book, I could remember very little of what I'd read only an hour before. Writing this review is difficult because it is taking serious effort to remember what I had issues with while reading. Bad sign? Most definitely.
I'm more interested in everything the book didn't say. It's obvious already that the program isn't going to be as clean as it is explained in this book. It will turn out that it is corrupt and instead of sending people around the world to help during disasters, they will be going to the highest bidder and the governments might even be using some of the talented people for not-so-good means. I would rather read about that. If it turns out that the program is that black and white (which I don't imagine it will be due to some hints at the end of the book), then I will be even more disappointed than I already am.
Maybe this story wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have to read through Dancia's unnecessary explanations (Why do we need to know your grandfather was a logger? Get back to the story because I don't care!) and lovestruck point of view. Since this book is written in first person, the reader is stuck dealing with her obsession with Cam for 293 pages of misery. Words cannot express how many times and how badly I wanted Dancia to shut up about Cam and get back to telling the story. Cam this, Cam that, Cam wouldn't want me to do this, but Cam and I are meant to be (that last part is a direct quote from our fourteen-year-old main character, by the way)--I don't see what the big deal about the guy is about! He felt as fake as counterfeit money.
The only thing about this book that made it worth reading was Jack, and even he hit my pet peeves. Do I need to say this in Caps Lock? I think I do. STALKING IS BAD, PEOPLE! I think I need to make a tag for that and a few other things. Jack lost serious points with me when it was discovered that he'd started following Dancia after she helped him. I don't tolerate that when I read. I'm having one of those moments where I wonder if I missed the point completely or if I'm just being picky. After all, if so many other people have nice things to say, how am I able to find all these negatives? Then I remember that reading is quite subjective and the world needs negative people to make it go around. I don't recommend this book, but I won't tell people not to read it.
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