Unapologetic Reader, Psychotic Writer

Rating - 3.5 starsI liked this book, despite finding Mafi's way of writing a bit hard to digest for the first few chapters. Once I got used to the metaphors, the strikethroughs and the repetition of words, I really got into the story.The dystopian society is like the ones we have encountered in many other YA novels - the world gets poor, and the Reestablishment takes over, promises a better life but is actually planning world domination and yada yada yada... there was nothing new or interesting about that.What was interesting was Juliette, not the character whom I couldn't empathize with much, but the power he had in her touch. She could suck the life out of (literally) whoever she touched and was confined in solitary so that she wouldn't kill anyone. And of course, the evil domineering Reestablishment wanted to use her gift(?) as a means of torture to further their power.I liked Adam fairly enough but he just didn't have it to capture my heart. He was a good, safe character - the boy from Juliette's past whom she could trust, and that's it. He was fairly predictable and he was not overdone like most male leads are. He was there for Juliette, he really cared for her and they were good as a couple; though the fact that her touch didn't hurt him was quite convenient.And Warner, I hated him with all my heart, which I suppose is a correct reaction to have towards a homicidal, sadist psychopath. The fact that he too was immune to Juliette was a touch too hard to digest . He was a good antagonist, with his bipolar moods and inclination towards murder he was creepy enough for me.But my favorite character so far were James and Kenji. The were AWESOME! Though they didn't have much to do they totally lighted up the whole book for me. James was cute, funny and captured my heart in a way his big brother did not (not trying to sound like a pedophile here but he was too adorable). And Kenji was kickass. He was funny, and cool, and Japanese (Kenji Kishimoto...hmm...) and could disappear SO AWESOME!! I totally whooped when I found out about that!!The X-Men like twist totally blindsided me,it was just too unexpected. It would have been better if there had been some mention about it sooner or at least speculations. I think Castle has potential to be a great character (but he just sounds so much like Professor X) and I definitely want my chameleon guy Kenji to have a lot more to do in the sequel The sequel has a lot of potential; I just hope there won't be too much of Adam-Juliette-Warner love triangle shit... but that is just my wishful thinking. All in all it was a good book, not mindblowing, but good.