Conjured by Sarah Beth Durst

Conjured

by Sarah Beth Durst

Eve has a new home, a new face, and a new name—but no memories of her past. She’s been told that she's in a witness protection program. That she escaped a dangerous magic-wielding serial killer who still hunts her. The only thing she knows for sure is that there is something horrifying in her memories the people hiding her want to access—and there is nothing they won’t say—or do—to her to get her to remember.

At night she dreams of a tattered carnival tent and buttons being sewn into her skin. But during the day, she shelves books at the local library, trying to not let anyone know that she can do things—things like change the color of her eyes or walk through walls. When she does use her strange powers, she blacks out and is drawn into terrifying visions, returning to find that days or weeks have passed—and she’s lost all short-term memories. Eve must find out who and what she really is before the killer finds her—but the truth may be more dangerous than anyone could have ever imagined.

Reviewed by Stephanie on

4 of 5 stars

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I will read anything Sarah Beth Durst writes. I love her books. With that said, I enjoyed Conjured, but it wasn't my favorite of hers.

Conjured is a very strange book. I could not figure out what was going on and why Eve was so special and had to be in this Witness Protection Program. And then there were people with magic and Eve could magically make wallpaper come to life and change her eye color. It was all so strange and all this magical stuff happened like it was normal.

The book starts off right away with the weirdness. Eve has visions of being at a carnival and watching magical kids getting killed in some magical way and being shrunk to fit inside this very small box that keeps you from doing magic and dead bodies being cut up to fit inside these very small boxes and DOLLS THAT YOU CAN HEAR BREATHING. I mean, what is going on?! Who thinks of this kind of stuff?!

I never knew who to trust. There's Malcolm, who watches over Eve and makes sure she's safe and is pretty much a big teddy bear. I loved him. Then there's Aunt Nicki, who absolutely hates Eve, but is assigned to stay in the house with Eve and act like her guardian. And then there were these 3 kids who had some type of magic, like Eve. I didn't trust them at all because they were the ones telling Eve not to trust Malcolm or the program.

One thing that kind of threw me off from the story was the relationship between Eve and Zach. Zach, who is a normal human being, was so weird. The first time we meet him, he tells Eve he wanted to kiss her. That's just a little too assertive for me. Their relationship happened just a little too fast, and I never really got on board with it.

Eve has amnesia, she only knows what she see's in her visions, and she doesn't even know if those are memories or dreams. She had to be taught how to read and talk and everything, which means she doesn't really have a personality. A lot of the book is her trying to figure out this world she is in, and why she's in it. So a lot of it is her absorbing everything and trying to figure out who she can trust. This is another reason why I never liked the idea of her and Zach. She doesn't know anything, but yet she knows enough to be in a relationship.

I really enjoyed all the weird magical stuff that was happening and trying to figure out what was going on. There were some things that kept me from the story, like Eve's lack of personality, but the strangeness of it all kept me entertained.

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  • Started reading
  • 5 November, 2013: Finished reading
  • 5 November, 2013: Reviewed