Melissa West delivers a brilliant beginning and a brilliant ending to her young adult novel “Gravity.” just a shame about that midsection.
In the future, peeking is strictly disallowed. Break the rule and peek and you risk losing your life. And that’s exactly what seventeen year old Ari Alexander has gone and done. She peeked and saw Jackson Locke—the arrogant and brash popular kid at school—hovering above her bed. As though she weren’t surprised enough just to see him, she becomes even more so when he issues a challenge: help him or every living person on the face of the planet will die.
Crikey. Sounds a bit serious dat, ay?!
What should Ari do? Should she report him? But then, she appears to be falling for him. He’s not just after her attention, though. And she isn’t just your run –f the mill kinda gal. She knows the art of war, having been taught by her father. Now she’s stuck between two giant (and very sharp) rocks: she can help Jackson by providing information he needs, but that would mean betraying her father and country, or she can remain silent, but that would lead to war.
Mellia West’s Gravity is set a book which is simultaneously brilliant and yet disappointing. Its easy to divide the book in three: the beginning is great, the middle is dull, the n the ending, once again, is great. I suppose the second act is always the hardest.
The characters in Gravity are fantastic (especially Ari and Jackson). Jackson is a real charmer: hot, strong and caring. He’s realistically written, too (at least insofar as an alien / human relationship can be realistic). And the world in which Gravity takes place is extremely well imagined and believable. You’ll find yourself fully engrossed in Melissa West’s vision of the future.
It is a shame that the middle section of the book is weak, but nevertheless, Gravity is a thoroughly enjoyable title and is highly recommended for young adult readers.