Significance by Shelly Crane

Book description:

Maggie is a seventeen year old girl who's had a bad year. She was smart and on track but then her mom left, her dad is depressed, she's graduating, barely, and her boyfriend of almost three years dumped her for a college football scholarship. Lately she thinks life is all about hanging on by a thread and is gripping tight with everything she has.

Then she meets Caleb. She saves his life and instantly knows there's something about him that's intriguing but she is supposed to be on her way to a date with his cousin. But things change when they touch, sparks ignite. Literally.

They imprint with each other and she sees their future life together flash before her eyes. She learns that not only is she his soul mate, and can feel his heartbeat in her chest, but there is a whole other world of people with gifts and abilities that she never knew existed. She herself is experiencing supernatural changes unlike anything she's ever felt before and she needs the touch of his skin to survive.

Now, not only has her dad come out of his depression to be a father again, and a pain as well, but Caleb's enemies know he's imprinted and are after Maggie to stop them both from gaining their abilities and take her from him.

Can Caleb save her or will they be forced to live without each other after just finding one another? (Goodreads)

My review:

So... I blame it on the fact that I had a fever last three days. I felt like I was in the deepest pit of hell, I was cranky, it felt as if my lungs were on fire and I had a killer headache. So... as one of my girlfriends said, I needed something sappy.

Where to start? What I like or what I don't like? How I'm afraid of feminist wrath? Or how I'm torn between giving support to indie authors and wanting to strangle them for publishing their books in hurry without checking it out for, if necessary, millionth time and, for God's sake, good editor?

Let's begin with the most important irrelevant thing - cover. For indie novels, Shelly Crane has some pretty amazing covers. I had to say this because some publishers should learn from this woman - I know it's shallow, but cover is very important.

The story. Hmm... Interesting concept, it could be great book, but... You read book description on the beginning of this post, right? Well, that's it. The whole plot. On 330 pages. (I seemed much longer to me.) Lots of repetition, certain parts of plot are left hanging loose and others are overdone. The biggest "no" for me was ending - I don't want to spoil it for those who didn't read it, so I'll just put it like this: it should have finished after 26th chapter. That's actually common problem for self published authors - they don't know when to end or how to divide the manuscript. Next time, ask for help! Don't rush - it won't get you anywhere. Make second edition - upgraded!

The characters. Caleb and Maggie are sweet, but looking in general, character development is lacking. The whole story is just about their interaction - it would be more believable (and less repetitive) if author gave more attention to other aspects of their lives and to the other people in their lives. Because of whole imprinting thing, it would be better it Maggie and Caleb are, at least, twenty years old. We have Twilight-cliché - big, happy, supportive, rich family. And I'm annoyed with it.

Speaking of Twilight-clichés, Signifiance, obviously, goes in category of books written by obsessive Twilight fan. Enough said! If this book was reviewed by my friend  Zemira, she'd put it on this shelves: could-have-been-better, ahhh-my-eyes, get-to-the-point-already, hmmm, i-blame-twilight, mixed-feelings, why-the-hype and youve-got-to-be-kidding-me. And there are others reviews with lots of squealing, gushing, ahhs and ohhs, OMGs and WOWs and swooning... Where does it leaves me? Well, somewhere in the middle.

I believe this could be book worth reading but it needs lots of hard work and author's willingness to accept constructive criticism. I don't like to write negative reviews, but sometimes it's just the right thing that authors need to hear.

Until next time,