Review: Hunting Lila by Sarah Alderson

HUNTING LILA

Author: Sarah Alderson

Publication Date: 08/05/2011

Audience: YA

Genre: Science Fiction, Romance

17-year-old Lila has two secrets she’s prepared to take to the grave. The first is that she can move things just by looking at them. The second is that she’s been in love with her brother’s best friend, Alex, since forever.

After a mugging exposes her unique ability, Lila decides to run to the only people she can trust—her brother and Alex. They live in Southern California where they work for a secret organization called The Unit, and Lila discovers that the two of them are hunting down the men who murdered her mother five years before. And that they’ve found them.

In a world where nothing and no one is quite as they seem, Lila quickly realizes that she is not alone—there are others out there just like her—people with special powers—and her mother’s killer is one of them…

Summary from Goodreads

REVIEW

I really enjoyed Hunting Lila.  It was fast paced, full of action and switching sides, and the best kind of romance. It really had a X-Men science fiction kind of feel to it.

Our MC Lila has a hidden mind power that she has been hiding for several years, after an intense stand off with some teenage muggers she takes the red eye from London to Cali where her brother, Jack, and his best friend, Alex, live and work.  Lila doesn't know much about what the boys do aside from what little they have told her and things she thinks she has put together.  Most of the book is spent running from unseen enemies and finding out the truth about Lila, Jack, and Alex...and of course the unspoken feelings between Alex and Lila.

I had a love/hate relationship with Lila.  For the most part I liked her but then there were times that she seemed completely dense and immature, especially when it came to Alex.  She didn't come across like a unique character.  I mean, she has a superpower which is pretty cool, but her reactions were pretty cookie cutter.  AND she has a SUPERPOWER! So why doesn't she realize how badass she could be???

Like I said the story was pretty fast paced and had me turning the pages at a breakneck speed despite my reservations of Lila.  By the end of the book I was completely invested but since it ends in a type of cliff hanger I know without a doubt that I will be purchasing the second book.