Luminosity (Raven Chronicles #1) Blog Tour Stop and Giveaway

By Stephanie Thomas

Publisher: Entangled Teen
Publication Date: November 13, 2012
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal
Source: Itching for Books Blog Tour

My name is Beatrice. When I was born, I was blessed with the Sight. I was immediately removed from my parents and enrolled in the Institution. At the age of twelve, I had my first true vision, earning my raven’s wings. And when I turned seventeen, one of my visions came true. Things haven’t been the same since.

The Institution depends on me to keep the City safe from our enemy, the Dreamcatchers, but I’m finding it harder to do while keeping a secret from everyone, including my best friend Gabe. It is a secret that could put us all in danger. A secret that could kill me and everyone close to me.

But the enemy has been coming to me in my dreams, and I think I’m falling in love with him. He says they’re coming. He says they’re angry. And I think I’ve already helped them win.

Goodreads Summary

In a future world ravaged by war, the population has been divided into three groups: Citizens, Seers and Dreamcatchers. Citizens are the “normal” people; Seers are people marked by their purple eyes, removed from their families shortly after birth, who have visions of future events and Dreamcatchers are their polar opposites. They see the past, stealing into minds and sucking the life out of people. The Seers have gathered the Citizens into the City and barricaded themselves in, assigning themselves as their protectors against the Dreamcatchers.

Beatrice may be the most powerful Seer in the City, second only to their leader, The Keeper. Her visions have been proven to come true, most recently resulting in the capture of a Dreamcatcher who was able to infiltrate the City. Being near this particular one is some sort of trigger for Bea and she starts having dreams and more ominous visions of a Dreamcatcher invasion. The entire Institution goes on high alert, starting a chain of disaster that even Bea couldn’t have predicted.

Luminosity is a hit-the-ground-running story that touches on the paranormal, a little science fiction, a dash of fantasy and a bit of the romance genres. There’s probably some dystopian in there if I wanted to be technical about it too. I’m not usually a fan of books that seem…overly ambitious that mix in too many genres and failing at one, bringing the whole story down but my fears were never realized with Luminosity. I knew I had to read it for my review but once I started it, I had to read it because there was no way I was putting it down.

The story is a nice balance between action and Bea’s visions/psychological drama. I really liked that there were so many little pieces of things that would come out in Bea’s visions that later on would be revealed in the story in an unexpected context. The story starts out pretty quickly and I was thrown right into Bea’s head, so the fact that she’s always confused made the story suspenseful from the start. Her position as the “top” Seer pressures her making some dumb choices but in her case, I honestly can see how she would think she was protecting people. She grew a lot just during this story and I really look forward to the next story where it picks up.

One of the people Bea feels most protective of is her best friend Gabe. She’s known him forever and recently she’s been feeling a little…more. I liked Gabe and thought he was cute, then he acted like a jerk and I wanted to bean him. He never seemed to fully trust Bea, which bugged me. The other guy in Bea’s life is a Dreamcatcher named Echo. I think I had a dozen theories about who he might be to her and I still have them, since nothing was revealed that I picked up yet. After having it drilled into her that all Dreamcatchers are evil, it’s difficult for her to accept Echo and see him as a “normal” (as normal as he could be) guy.

The triangle between Echo, Bea and Gabe feels more like a possessiveness/guilt/attraction thing than any kind of love conflict. Maybe in the next book one or all of them will figure out what they want from each other, but for now, Echo has his agenda (possibly), Bea has her guilt and Gabe has his possessiveness. Both boys are attracted to Bea – of course. It was a little frustrating to not really have any particular couple to want to get behind. It wasn’t that either of the guys were perfect, it’s that neither of them is particularly bad either.

I loved the action in the story and there’s quite a bit of it. It’s almost military and feels a bit like a video game, if that doesn’t sound too strange. It was just gripping – there wasn’t a lot of blood and gore, but with just a few poignantly-placed deaths or injuries taking place at perilous times, I was sucked right in.

My Summary: Every so often, I had a strange case of déjà vu during a passage, but Thomas still ended up fascinating me with this story which mostly takes place in Bea’s head. It ended on what I call a soft cliffhanger – enough to make me swear a little bit, not enough to make me toss my Kindle. The story was full of just enough clues that I can speculate my heart away for a while and good enough that re-reading it won’t be painful at all. In August, Stephanie said on her blog that she’d finished the first draft of the next book, Evanescence, and while there’s still not even a rough release date, it’s on my must-have list.

My Rating: A

I cannot lie. The most contemporary piece of music I own (or have listened to) is the new Bond theme by Adele and before that, I bought a song because I heard it used it a commercial and liked it. Give me the music of the 80s, 90s, Harry Connnick Jr., Michael Bublé and yes, Josh Groban, and I’m happy. So when asked to come up with a playlist for Luminosity, a book that is definitely not those things, I’m digging through the cobwebs for you.

So, I’m grabbing my curling iron, feathering and teasing my bangs and throwing on a dozen black rubber bracelets to bring you (drumroll)…my Luminosity Playlist:

1: Jive Talkin’ by The Bee Gees
2: Would I Lie to You by The Eurythmics
3: Silent Lucidity by Queensryche
4: I Can Dream About You by Dan Hartman
5: Lady in Red by Chris De Burgh (The Keeper’s Song)
6: Another One Bites The Dust by Queen (Training Anthem)
7: Waiting For a Girl Like You by Foreigner
8: Barracuda by Heart (Rachelle’s Theme)
9: If You Don’t Know Me By Now by Simply Red (Echo’s Lament)
10: I’ll Stand by You by The Pretenders (Gabe’s Song)
11: The Final Countdown by Europe (pure cheese!)
12: Don’t Fall in Love With a Dreamer by Kenny Rogers and Kim Carnes

About the author:

Stephanie Thomas has been writing ever since she could put letters together to form words. When she was a small child, she would present her mother and father with self-made newspapers filled up with make believe stories and pictures. Her love for writing followed her all throughout her schooling, where she entered and won writing contests of all sorts. Stephanie decided to become an English teacher and completed her B.A. at The Pennsylvania State University. While teaching, she later went on to get her Master’s in writing from The Johns Hopkins University. She completed her very first manuscript during her graduate studies, and by the end of the program, she had completed two more.

Stephanie is quick to tell anyone that she’s a born and raised Philadelphian, and her heart will always belong there. She moved to Baltimore with her husband, and they’ve been living there for the last five years with their doggie, Sailor, and their rabbit, Buns (aka “T Sizzle).

Official site: stephaniethomasbooks.com
Twitter: twitter.com/stephthomasbook