Title:  Posession [indie bound] [amazon]
Author: Elana Johnson [website] [twitter] [facebook]
Genre:  Dystopian, Paranormal, Romance
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Format: Paperback
Source: Provided by Publisher
Parental Advisory: language, violence, political unrest
Teachable Moments: free-will, technology

“I begged her not to go back, but she said she had to.  I’d never see her again.  After that, I stopped plugging into the transmissions.  I dyed my hair.  Zenn and I snuck out and stayed up all night just to watch the sun rise the next morning.  We skipped rocks in the lake.  I went to parties and stole shoes and anything else I could think of to show that no one — and I mean no one — could control me.  Through it all, Zenn had been there with me, my silent partner.  My perfect match.”

Summary (from the publisher):
Vi knows the Rule:  Girls don’t walk with boys, and they never even think about kissing them. But no one makes Vi want to break the Rules more than Zenn….and since the Thinkers have chosen him as Vi’s future match, how much trouble can one kiss cause?  The Thinkers may have brainwashed the rest of the population, but Vi is determined to think for herself.

But the Thinkers are unusually persuasive, and they’re set on convincing Vi to become one of them….starting by brainwashing Zenn.  Vi can’t leave Zenn in the Thinkers’ hands, but she’s wary of joining the rebellion, especially since that means teaming up with Jag.  Jag is egotistical, charismatic, and dangerous — everything Zenn’s not.  Vi can’t quite trust Jag and can’t quite resist him, but she also can’t give up on Zenn.

This is a game of control or be controlled.  And Vi has no choice but to play.

Opinion:
I’m falling short of the best way to review this book.  Mainly because I’m kinda ambivalent about it.  I didn’t dislike it as much as I’ve seen others did and I didn’t love it as much as I wanted to.  There were definite weaknesses but I felt like there was also a great deal of strength.  Or maybe I felt like there was a great deal of potential and even though that potential may not have been fully achieved by my standards it didn’t fall as short as other books I’ve read.

I’ll add, that I came into this book with very low expectations.  Many of my friends, and trusted book recommenders, did not take to this story which had me on edge.  Their reasons for feeling that way were varied but understandable which is why I actually took the chance to read it. I wanted to see where I fell on the matter.  What I found out is that my opinion of the book, while not super high, isn’t super low either.  I definitely enjoyed it more than most it seems and I suspect some of that is due to their having sent me into it thinking the potential was high for me not to click with it.  For everything in this book I felt like my opinion was so manic.  On one hand I could really get it and felt like I was just on the cusp of liking it, but then on the other I would get frustrated by the same thing for different reasons.  So let’s talk examples of that shall we?

The insta-love factor.  Yea, Vi is touted as being madly in love with Zenn, she’s even breaking laws for him.  Yet when the door opened itself she moved at warp speed from the love of her life (whom she’d been with for a long period of time) to Jag a boy she’s just met.  What I couldn’t quite grasp was the why of it all.  Sure, Jag had charisma and mystery, which almost always attracts a teenaged girl, but even so to so quickly move on from Zenn with little substance in the alternate relationship just fell flat.  Having said that, I kinda liked Jag.  At least much more than Zenn who was as vanilla as they come.  Jag had an edge to him and more times than not I’ve preferred the bad boy type over the wholesome.

Another issue it was hard to wrap my mind around was the idea of figuring out what was real and what was mind control.  It was, at times, confusing, mainly because there was this fuzzy feeling to so much going on.  I wasn’t always sure what was being projected to me was what people were honestly thinking and feeling I often found myself wondering if it was all what they were being forced into.  NOW, this could also be counted in the pro column because this mind-control element of the story was THE thing.  It could be that Johnson was trying to disconcert me in the same way that Vi was disconcerted.  You know, put the reader in the same shoes as the character and all that. If that was the intent, kudos for pulling it off.  If it wasn’t then ugh, the fact that I got that feeling wasn’t the best.  Moreover, if it was the intent I needed to better understand that, it needed to be clearer to me.  So, all things considered that feeling ended up being more of a detriment to the story than an asset.

The concept and the plot, for the most part, felt original and the mixture of the paranormal and technology definitely made it interesting.  There were plenty of gadgets and abilities to keep a person guessing and interested.  The problem is that it was almost overkill.  I think I get where Johnson was going with it all, the abilities as the catalyst for escape and overcoming the evil oppressors, but man it felt overwhelming.  There was just so much going on. Add to that the increasing number of characters, all of whom we knew very little about, as the story went on and it started to turn into a confusing mesh of uncertainty.

I think you get my gist here.  It was beffuddling and I’ve not been able to determine if it’s in a good (ie: intended) way or bad.  Because of that I wouldn’t advise you to either stay away or run out and buy it.  If you feel like it appeals to you certainly pick it up I’d be interested to hear what you thought and saw that perhaps I didn’t.  If you feel like it sounds a bit too vague and underdeveloped from the character and plot perspective and you prefer not to wade through it’s probably best to stay away.  I suspect I’ll pick up the second to see if it helps clarify the first, there was quite the cliffhanger ending that I’m curious to see play out as well, but I doubt I’ll be running out the day it releases to do so.