Book #1 of 2014: Pivot Point by Kasie West

Welcome, 2014! I started off our new year by looking at all of the book blog posts I'd marked as "Books to Read" in my feedly and requesting about 12 of them to be put on hold at the library. (And about 8 of them have pretty long waiting lines... Dang it! But I guess that means they're probably going to be good.) I picked up the first three that came available yesterday and started reading this one first, for no other reason than I knew it was a cute YA novel that was highly reviewed by several people I trust. I definitely enjoyed it too! Addie is a teenager who lives in a "paranormal" compound, a group of people who all have special mind powers. Addie's power is that she's Divergent, or she can Search what her future will bring when she's presented with a choice, and choose which future path she wants to live out in real life. She's presented with the biggest Search she's ever had when her parents announce that they're getting a divorce, and she has to choose which parent she wants to live with. Her father is leaving the compound, so she has to choose between her "normal" paranormal life and moving out into the Normal world with all of us non-powerful people. The majority of the book is Addie's view of her two potential futures, written in alternating chapters.

I liked the structure of the book and how each chapter switched off from her potential future life in the compound and in the Normal world--it was really interesting to see how a lot of the same events happened from her different perspectives in different places. But it was also interesting to see how many things were different simply because of her presence or absence in each case. It seemed very It's a Wonderful Life and all to see what a big deal it was for Addie to be where she was. I also liked Addie as a character herself. She didn't have any big gimmick going for her, and she wasn't super confident or pretty or anything, but she seemed like a very likeable, believable and relatable character. As far as the story goes, I am pretty creeped out by the idea of living in a society where everyone has these super mental powers that they can use on everyone else. Seriously, it sounds terrible (as the ending of the book might make more explicit and obvious). Also, one minor thing, but Addie's parents totally should have taken a class on "how to break your divorce to your kids." They were terrible! They said basically, "Hey kid, we're getting divorced. Now pick who you're going to live with--you have one day." Seriously, I think that scene should have been smoothed out a bit more. But the rest of the book seemed much more believable.