Customer Reviews

Sensitive

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Sensitives have extra-sensory powers, distracting enough to create a nuisance. But behind the compelling front cover illustration is a mystery that can only be peeled back layer by layer. Sensitive Easter Hutton can rely on her mother to interfere long-distance with her school, job, friends Andrew and Cal. Easter condemns Nikki as a bad mom, alcoholic, drug abuser, runaway wife spiraling down into an oblivion she deserves, in the belief she'll never learn her lesson. In legendary "ghostville" St. Augustine, Florida, Easter finds a compassionate and similarly Sensitive grandmother who can reveal to her what her mom never could. A rite-of-passage tale of an unusual heroine and a return coup de grace by HOMEFREE author, Nina Wright.

If you can ever judge a book by its cover, you definitely can with SENSITIVE. Check out the haunting image of a sad girl peering, speechless, through a misty window. Spirits, vibrations, dark places, deep water--they're all elements of this eerie sequel to Nina Wright's HOMEFREE. I'm willing to bet that no one will be able to put it down. Get reacquainted with some of the characters you met in the first book, and then settle in for a reading experience that will raise the hair on the back of your neck! Easter and friends are haunted by the spirit of a girl who died 200 years ago. As if that's not bad enough, Andrew seems to be losing his mind, and Easter's mother is just plain lost. I recommend this book!

Sensitive's entrancing cover offers readers a hint of the mysyterious and magical journey they will embark upon with Easter and the Sensitives at Fairless Grove Academy. After reading this book, I cannot visit St. Augustine without rounding a corner expecting to see Easter, Cal, and Andrew or maybe stumbling upon the French restaurant, Astral.

Wright's characters shimmer on the pages in brilliantly written scenes like those between the "two cooks" and "Easter encountering Placida." With the signature witty and fine-edged dialogue Wright is known for, she creates a subculture readers will find enchanting. Putting the book down is not an option once readers enter Easter's world.

Both teens and adults will find Sensitive a fascinating read where the extraordinary subject of people teleporting and astral projecting shares the stage with everyday concerns of fitting-in, personal growth, and self-acceptance.

I for one, hope that Wright continues to pen books on Easter's journey to explore and master her "gifts." No doubt the book would easily make the transition to a screenplay for Hollywood, and would have quite a following.

Easter, Cal and Andrew are typical teens with a twist. In addition to normal teenage angst, they all have paranormal powers which they are not sure how to use. In a way they are feeling their way into the world as typical teenagers do, but they have an added dilemna in finding how to use the confusing gifts they have which, up until this point, they all thought made them crazy, and anything but typical. Now they have found that they are not alone in their differences. They are on a journey to maturity together with strange advisers to help them learn to use the abilities that "normal" teens do NOT have to deal with.

Ms Wright has woven a compelling story that will appeal not only to teenagers, but to anyone who has ever BEEN a teenager.

This sequel to "Homefree" once again takes us into a world that we know, but don't know. We all know the feelings of adolescence that make us know we are different, and insecure, but we don't know how it feels to be able to astralproject, read minds, move objects with our minds, and generally create mayhem on accident. In both novels we are brought into this world, and made to understand how the teens years would feel if you really WERE a "freak", not just thinking you were.

A great read for anyone from 12 to 92!

This is way more than a ghost story, but that's where it begins. Nina Wright connects the suspenseful and frightening with the humorous. Elements that seem completely unrelated convincingly and compellingly answer our questions in the end. I would love to see more books in this series, but if this is the last Homefree story, it does leave me satisfied.

SENSITIVE is Nina Wright's eerie and eclectic follow up to last year's HOMEFREE. Set in the nations oldest city, St Augustine, Florida, the story follows 16 year old Easter Hutton and her paranormal friends, Cal and Andrew. They have left their lives behind to join the Fairless Grove academy, a teen school for the gifted (think X-Men without the superhero stuff). In addition to their known talents(astral projecting, reading minds), they discover they are Sensitives--able to see and communicate with the Dead. Pursued by a 200 year old dead girl, the trio must navigate their new surroundings and figure out the mystery behind their calling. Funny, chilling and real, despite it's paranormal activities, Sensitive moves along briskly and satisfyingly. Filled with kooky and original characters--from the French teacher with fried hair from astral projecting to quickly, to the blind leader with a crazy talking parrot, to Easter's crazy mother whose quick marriage habits would make Elizabeth Taylor blush, Nina Wright can really write right (sorry). She will always entertain without fail, and all her books--from the Homefree series to her Whisky Mattimoe series of mysteries, are worth picking up.

Sensitive is a worthy follow-up to the excellent Homefree. If you haven't read the first one, do so immediately! Then pick up Sensitive in time for Halloween. A good Fall title to curl up with for those longer chilly nights...

I just finished reading what I consider to be Nina Wright's finest novel to date. SENSITIVE is a compelling tale peopled with fascinating, believable, colorful characters who can amuse as well as move us. Following closely on the heels of HOMEFREE, I think it marks Wright as an author to watch. She has skillfully woven a coming-of-age tale with paranormal elements. SENSITIVE reads like the mesmerizing second half of HOMEFREE, so seamlessly does it continue Easter Hutton's narrative. I found myself swept into her world of astral projection and hauntings, where spirits can be as annoying as they are alarming. A heartbreaking and yet reassuring tale of one outsider's extraordinary summer job....

I ordered a copy of Nina Wright's SENSITIVE and, in a shockingly uncharacteristic move, decided to forego the prequel, Homefree, and just jump right in. I liked the premise. Easter Hutton, her best friend Andrew, and her kinda-sorta boyfriend Cal are sensitives, meaning they have abilities a little left of normal. Andrew can read memories, Cal practices psychokinesis, and Easter is capable of astral projection. Translation: her spirit can travel through time and space without leaving her body. All three of them are part of Homefree--an underground organization that educates and trains paranormally minded teens. Fun premise, no? Throw in Easter's rather monumentally maternally challenged alcoholic mother and the mysterious Homefree headmaster Mr. Fairless and it sounds like a fun ride to me.

The thing was the story never let me in. The writing told me that Easter and Cal had the hots for each other and that Andrew was somehow more endangered by his abilities than the other two, but those things never really hit me. I never felt the passion or danger. I feel like lately I'm always asking for longer books. I'm not sure why this is the case. It takes a lot to create fully developed characters and have them burst forth on the page for your reader, living and breathing and calling out each other's names. Some authors are able to do this on a small page count. Their stories leave me satisfied instead of aching for more. Meg Rosoff, Garret Freymann-Weyr, and Laura Wiess leap to mind. Others simply require more pages. I felt like SENSITIVE could have benefited from a few (maybe 100) more, along with a little more willingness to let the reader in and feel with the characters. At the end of the book, I felt like I'd just gotten home from one of those freshman year college dates with the guy who begins every sentence with the words, "I'm the kind of guy who..."
Stop right there. If you have to tell me, it's all over.

In the sequel to HOMEFREE, SENSITIVE continues the tale of sixteen-year-old Easter, a girl with special talents that include astral projection. Along with her other friends, Cal and Andrew, she finds her first weeks of Fairless Grove Academy, a mysterious school for teens with paranormal abilities, confusing. She also finds out what it means to be sensitive.

I was disappointed with this book. There is some great dialogue between Easter and her friends but I felt the author skimmed over this tale. A few of the scenes felt rushed. The whole thing with her mother felt forced and the revelation at the ending of the story was predicable.

I wanted to know more about the academy. Unless there's another sequel?