Possession

by Elana Johnson

In a world where Thinkers control the population and Rules are not meant to be broken, fifteen-year-old Violet Schoenfeld must make a choice to control or be controlled after learning truths about her "dead" sister and "missing" father.

• ISBN10: 1442423919
• ISBN13: 9781442423916
• Publish Date: 7 June 2011
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Simon Pulse
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

"Blood was thicker than water, right? But was blood thicker than love? Than choice? Than freedom?"

If someone was to ask me what Possession is really about, I wouldn't be able to answer.

On the surface, it seems like a typical YA dystopia. The main character lives in a society that is being controlled by the 'big bads'. When they find out about all the brainwashing, they either run away or get mixed up in a rebellion, leave their love interest or 'match' behind and end up pining for the rebellious one who introduced them to the resistance. Possession is a little different. The heroine, Violet, already knows that her society is being controlled and because she doesn't follow the rules, she is sent to prison.

After that... I become a ball of confusion, which could be due to two factors: the worldbuilding and the characters. 

The worldbuilding is confusing, inconsistent and hazy. The world is technologically advanced and people have special abilities, but the tech isn't explained, the abilities don't make sense and a bunch of terms get thrown around. 

There's also different areas, one of them being the Badlands, which causes more confusion because:
1) The Badlands is not as controlled and has a lot more freedom, but the same people who run Violet's city also control the Badlands. Why don't they brainwash people there too? 
2) People get banished to the Badlands, but why? More freedom isn't a punishment. 

The characters are also inconsistent and I didn't care about them. Their motives are unclear. Why do they want to run away? What do they want to achieve? Instead of the characters' personality and actions and moving the plot along, their actions are forced to fit in with what the confusing plot dictates.

The instalove and love triangle is poorly executed. Zenn, Violet's 'match', is forgotten about for most of the book and Jag is the attractive guy whom Violet meets in prison and finds utterly irresistible. I didn't care about the romance aspects and couldn't take the romantic relationships seriously. 

With all that said, Possession has some positives that kept me reading, such as interesting concepts and technology and exciting plot points that are introduced in the last quarter.

I'm hoping that Surrender has better worldbuilding because the world and its concepts seem interesting. I just couldn't understand much of it.

[Joséphine]

What bothered me was the complete lack of clarity. The narrative was from Vi’s point of view, yet there were times it seemed to shift to Jag’s. There was no warning, no indication, no nothing. There was no header, change in font or in the very least a lead-in. It was only a couple of pages later that it turned out that Vi had invaded Jag’s dreams. Prior to that there was no indication that she even had that capability. It greatly annoyed me that the narration continued in first-person as though his thoughts were actually her thoughts. Perhaps that was supposed to be a literary device to show just how much her thoughts were consumed by his. I didn’t care for it. Yes, I appreciate it when authors believe in the readers’ intelligence but I highly doubt anyone would have been insulted if his dreams had been italicized.

At first I wanted to hurl the book in one corner, give it a single star rating, and then forget about it. But I managed to reach the 180th page with THE twist of the story and that made me finish reading the book just to know what would happen. I figured making me want to read more warrants a second star. But the ending made me wanna go into another fit of rage but this is the first book of a trilogy, so I suppose the not so desirable ending was necessary to give reason for the subsequent two books. I doubt I’ll stick around to find out what happens after this though.

Fuller review here.

[sstaley]

Great writing, colorful and memorable characters, fascinating plot, steamy boyfriend...wanted a different ending. Nice job Elana!!