Review: Wake

Book One of the Watersong series
By Amanda Hocking
Available now from St. Martin's Griffin
Review copy

Gemma loves to swim.  She's at swim practice everyday, swimming in the bay at night, and a potential Olympian.   Her older sister, Harper, worries about her midnight swims.  She's been watching out for Gemma since their mother had a traumatic brain injury.  In a few months she'll be at college and no longer able to keep an eye out.  And there is reason to worry since several local boys have gone missing.

Penn, Thea, and Lexi are three incredibly beautiful girls who have come to the tourist town for the summer.  But there's something creepy about them.  Gemma always stays away when they're partying on the beach during one of her swims.  Until one day something happens and she gives in, waking up the next day hungover and bruised.  Something happened to her that night, and now she's changing.

WAKE is the first book by Amanda Hocking to be traditionally published since her phenomenal success with self-publishing.  It's also the first book I've read by Hocking, despite downloading a few of her earlier books.  I enjoyed it and can see why she's become so popular.  WAKE is a fast read that incorporates many young adult urban fantasy tropes while cleverly twisting a few.

I particularly liked that all of the main characters - Gemma, Harper, and their love interests - weren't drawn to Penn's group despite thinking they were dangerous.  They do their best to stay away because they know something isn't right with those girls and they have a sense of self-preservation.  I also liked that Gemma never denies something supernatural is happening to her.  She might not know what it is, but she tries to figure out more about her transformation immediately instead of denying the obvious.

I wished the love interests, Alex and Daniel, got a little more pagetime.  They seem like decent guys and they had chemistry with Gemma and Harper, respectively, but I wanted WAKE to delve deeper into who they were behind the flirtatious banter.  (Daniel does do this, a little.)  Both male love interests being human was also refreshing.

I think WAKE was a good start to the Watersong series, even if it ended a bit abruptly.  Book Two, LULLABY, should be out November 27, so it's not like there's going to be a long wait.  I am looking forward to reading it because I want to know how everything turns out!

In addition to urban fantasy fans, I think WAKE might appeal to all the girls watching the Olympics this summer.  Considering fifteen-year-old Katie Ledecky went to the Olympics in the 800-meter freestyle after breaking the previous trial record and then took home the gold, it's an exciting time for young women who love swimming.

Fantasy

Fantasy with Libba Bray, Justine Larbalestier, Lisa McMann, and Rick Yancey

This was the shortest of the panels, since lunch ran long. It began with Lisa McMann turning a broken rose into a jacket decoration and each of the authors telling something about themselves and their books, Lisa's being WAKE and FADE.



Justine Larbalestier pointed out her Australian heritage, marking her as the one in the panel with an accent. (Carrie Jones had a cute Maine accent and Shana Burg had a nice Boston one.) Of course, it soon became a competition to see who had the most hot guys and dead bodies in their book. (Winner seemed to be Justine, who's LIAR contained both, whereas the others seemed to tend toward one or the other.)



But this mini-contest led to the authors discovering an important fact: the responsiveness of the audience. Libba Bray discovered she could conduct the audience's roars of appreciation.

Being brave (she did wear a cow suit in the GOING BOVINE trailer, which I point out in my interview), Libba offered the following advice to teens: don't let a guy or girl talk you into doing LSD and then going to see Aliens.



And no, it didn't come as surprise to anyone when the authors admitted that they hadn't been popular in high school. (I believe Justine put it, "We're writers.") However, high school was good for one thing: writing stuff that would get rejected. Generally, they all had darlings they hoped would eventually get published. (WAKE was one for Lisa.) On the other hand, some of those earlier books will never see the light of day. For Rick Yancey, it was his second book.

Fortunately, Libba misheard him and thought he said sex book. Rick joked that it might sell if he rewrote it with sex, but nope, it was just his second book. (His newest, THE MONSTRUMOLOGIST, isn't a sex book either.)



They also discussed their reading audiences, mostly boys versus girls. Lisa likes that her covers and content are fairly gender neutral. But none of them seemed to want to limit their audience; they wanted their books to entertain and reach as many people as possible. Once again, it was a very amusing panel. It made me very sad I missed Libba's keynote address, since she was cracking a joke a minute.