Minder by Kate Kaynak
I enjoyed this one though it’s unclear in my head exactly how much. It started off really strong. I loved the short bursts of action/narrative paragraphs punctuated by the single-worded internal dialogue and how powerfully that helped the reader to understand Maddie’s emotions concerning herself.
As usual, I hadn’t read the blurb for this and so headed in blind, and was very excited with where Maddie ended up and the potential for that. And even ducking back to read the blurb now I’ve finished, the book’s description makes it sound as though it should mainly revolve around that.
However, except for the opening, where we get to oooh and aaaah over Maddie’s self-discovery, and around the final 20% of the book where it suddenly becomes kick-a$$ and I found myself sitting up straighter in my seat, this book is primarily a romance and totally about Maddie and Trevor.
Trevor? He was just adorable. He really was. Which was more than could be said for Maddie sometimes. Though I imagine that had more to do with her absorbing and accepting and modulating her abilities than it had to do with her being a b****. Luckily for her, Trevor’s morals were set at a higher standard—and her wanting to redeem herself of her crappy behaviour (which, don’t get me wrong, is only occasional), because she wants to be a better person for Trevor, did go a fair way to making her as likeable as she was. So did the ending. She turned into a fearless ninja, an awesome leader, and a great team player.
However, because the kick-a$$ ending was so kick-a$$, I found I’d have liked more of ‘that’ throughout. Less of the romance and mushy stuff that seemed to have sucked up most of the book, and far more of the action that held this story together.
To begin, I found myself rolling my eyes at Maddie and Trevor’s instant connection, and the way they suddenly decided they were soul mates. I mean, how old were these teens? Sixteen, the blurb states (I had to double check), yet at one point in the book, Maddie refers to Trevor as the ‘man she loves’ (or words to that effect).
So, whilst the romance of it was all very nice (because I love a good romance as much as the next bird), I did think it ended up being the main point of the story, rather than the fact we had an secret complex of ‘gifted’ kids to be wowed with. I’m only hoping this insta-love gets expanded on so we can have a better reasoning for it in the following book(s), but preferably without it taking up nearly all of the words.
So I enjoyed it. The plot was okay, the writing was decent, it made me laugh out loud a few times, and the concept was pretty cool. I just felt the content could have been slightly better balanced. I’ll definitely read on though—especially now it’s been hinted at that there ‘should’ be more fun for the Fabulous Five (<<like the name I donned them?).
