Review: Pivot Point by Kasie West

MY TAKE

Pivot Point was an amazing book that had me desperate for more by the time it finished.  I read this book in one afternoon because I just couldn’t put it down.  Addie lives in a secret Compound where people have special powers.  Her power is that, when faced with a choice, she can see the possible outcomes based on that choice.  Addie is faced with a big decision when her parents decide to get a divorce – to stay in the Compound with her sometimes distant mother or to leave everything she has ever known and go out into the “real” world with her father, who she feels much closer to.  Of course, she decides to use her ability to see which decision will be better for her.  When she starts her search, however, she discovers that the decision might not be as easy as it seems and that both love and pain may be inescapable no matter what she chooses.  

Okay, there were a lot of things that I loved about this book.  Honestly, the ending was 5+ stars in my book.  It was suspenseful and full of action and romance – truly amazing!  I also thought that West did an amazing job with character development.  Addie was charming and slightly neurotic at the same time and I loved reading a book where  I really LIKED the main character (most of the time – she had a few moments where I groaned, but that’s being picky).  But the other characters were also incredibly well-developed and I felt like I could understand what motivated each of them to act the way that they did – Laila, Addie’s outgoing (but not too extreme) best friend – Duke, the oh-so-cool and confident star quarterback who Addie writes off until she gets closer to him and discovers that he might not be as arrogant and self-reliant as she thought – and Trevor, the artistic, sensitive, but down-to-earth guy who Addie thinks might be new best friend material (and maybe more?).  Speaking of Trevor, I have to say that I am totally in love with him.  I loved that he wasn’t the “perfect” boy stereotype – he was struggling with a major injury and a loss of his identity – but he also didn’t turn that struggle into typical “bad boy” behavior, which also would have seem stereotyped.  Yes, I was obviously team Trevor all the way.

A few criticisms to mention.  First off (and this was the biggest one for me).  I had a lot of the “mysteries” of the book figured out relatively early on.  This bugged me a little bit when I was less than three-quarters of the way through and I was pretty sure I knew several things that were going to happen (and I was right).  This is really what kept me from giving the book 5 stars, even though I was feeling so incredibly 5-starrish by the time I put the book down.  I WILL say, though, that at the very end of the book there were some twists that I did NOT see coming.  So, all in all, I still felt more than satisfied at the end.  One other small criticism is that, for a paranormal book, there wasn’t a whole lot of interesting paranormal action going on (once again, until the end of the book).  I didn’t mind this so much because I enjoyed the book for what it was, but if you were reading this book expecting a lot of cool paranormal activity, you’d be disappointed.  I was anything but disappointed, though, which is why I give the book 4.5/5 stars.