This is a very odd book, although the premise is interesting. Lucas, Reign, and Mia are brother and sisters who have lost their parents. Mia has had Lucas confined to a mental institution due to the voices he hears in his head. Reign is an emancipated seventeen year old. When Lucas escapes from the mental institution, Mia and Reign are both desperate to find him for very different reasons. Lucas finds himself with a group that has "auras" that show in indigo blue. They call themselves the "Indigo Children" and think that Lucas is a "Crystal Child." Reign, in her search for Lucas, also meets Gabe, who may also be a "Crystal Child." All of the Indigo Children have powers that include some kind of psychic ability. The group that they are running from wants to harness these psychic abilities.

Indigo Awakening is the first book of a series called The Hunted that does show some promise. This book is really just the beginning of the story, introducing characters and problems that will be faced in future books. There is lots of action in this story, and it is fairly gritty for a teen book - including the amount of unnecessary profanity used. I'm hoping that the next book in the series, Crystal Storm, is better than the first. ( )

This is a very odd book, although the premise is interesting. Lucas, Reign, and Mia are brother and sisters who have lost their parents. Mia has had Lucas confined to a mental institution due to the voices he hears in his head. Reign is an emancipated seventeen year old. When Lucas escapes from the mental institution, Mia and Reign are both desperate to find him for very different reasons. Lucas finds himself with a group that has "auras" that show in indigo blue. They call themselves the "Indigo Children" and think that Lucas is a "Crystal Child." Reign, in her search for Lucas, also meets Gabe, who may also be a "Crystal Child." All of the Indigo Children have powers that include some kind of psychic ability. The group that they are running from wants to harness these psychic abilities.
Indigo Awakening is the first book of a series called The Hunted that does show some promise. This book is really just the beginning of the story, introducing characters and problems that will be faced in future books. There is lots of action in this story, and it is fairly gritty for a teen book - including the amount of unnecessary profanity used. I'm hoping that the next book in the series, Crystal Storm, is better than the first. ( )

Indigo Awakening by Jordan Dane is the first book in the Believers series. While Indigo Awakening had a promising premise, everything else was either annoying, confusing, or just plain boring. The cover is fairly pretty though, curse pretty covers and their deception!
Note: I borrowed Indigo Awakening from my library; all opinions are my own.



Indigo Awakening by Jordan Dane (The Hunted #1)
Published by Harlequin Teen on Dec. 18th, 2012
Genres: Paranormal Romance, YA
Length: 304 pages
How I got my copy: NetGalley
IndieBound - Book Depository - Goodreads
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Because of what you are, the Believers will hunt you down.

Voices told Lucas Darby to run. Voices no one else can hear. He’s warned his sister not to look for him, but Rayne refuses to let her troubled brother vanish on the streets of LA. In her desperate search, she meets Gabriel Stewart, a runaway with mysterious powers and far too many secrets. Rayne can’t explain her crazy need to trust the strange yet compelling boy—to touch him—to protect him even though he scares her.

A fanatical church secretly hunts psychic kids—gifted “Indigo” teens feared to be the next evolution of mankind—for reasons only “the Believers” know. Now Rayne’s only hope is Gabe, who is haunted by an awakening power—a force darker than either of them imagine—that could doom them all.

Strengths:
I love the premise of children being born with psychic powers and a secret organization trying to hunt them down. Indigo Awakening even seemed to take a new spin on this fairly standard story with the blue flames and auras element.
I found myself with some lovely mental imagery while reading Indigo Awakening. There are fireflies conjured and I love fireflies!
Weaknesses:
The psychic powers that the Indigo Children had were freaking all over the place. We only got details about a couple of kids’ powers, so I don’t even have a good idea of what the rule system is for this magic, but it very much seemed like powers were being made up as Indigo Awakening progressed for whatever was needed in the plot. This is one of my huge pet-peeves in fantasy stories! Rules are important for magic to be interesting.
On top of that, there are a couple of scenes during the epic battle that involve magic that makes absolutely no sense given what has been done previously and is never explained. This irks me unbelievably.
The church that is hunting these children is never given any background. How did this church emerge, how does it sit with the general populace, what are the tenets of its beliefs? The big bad organization needs to actually be something other than “those people who are hunting our MCs down, grrr on them” ya know?
The dialogue is sooooo cheesy. I’m all for people talking normally, but Indigo Awakening took teen slang to a whole new annoying level on top of teens saying cheesy romance lines.
Speaking of the romance: insta-love!
You know how we hate when animals are in stories just to be killed and make you sad? It’s even better when human characters are so obviously placed in the story just to die and make you sad. Except I wasn’t sad, I was really really angry at how cheap of a trick this was.
There are subheadings within the chapters that specify time and place, but some of them say “Minutes Later” or “Seconds Later.” This was so disruptive and unnecessary while I was reading. If there is a blank line, that very much implies that there is a slight break, such as to transition to a new scene, but not a huge one since that would be a new chapter. I’m not dumb okay!
The big reveal at the very end of the book is just freaking stupid. I didn’t see it coming because it’s just too unbelievably cliche, and that is not a good was to surprise me.
Summary:
Honestly, there are more weaknesses listed in my notes, but I feel like this list is too long as it is. Indigo Awakening is almost certainly not worth your time. If you don’t care about a complete lack of world-building, character development, interesting plot development, or dialogue and the premise sounds awesome, go for it! But maybe borrow it from the library or keep that receipt. I definitely would have DNF’d Indigo Awakening if I hadn’t stupidly requested the sequel for review before realizing it was the sequel to this one…. I swear I thought Crystal Fire was a first in series! Why did I do this to myself???

1.5 Stars ( )

Book's already out and I'll just start my ARC now. >_

Hmmm... The story is pretty good. The way it was delivered was okay. I mean, it's not that confusing even though it keeps on changing the POV. It is just necessary for the story. I think it's just that... I am not sure Rayne should be the heroine. LOL. Er. Maybe it's just cause of too many POVs.

Okay... thinking about it, it does sounds confusing. Indigo Awakening was, I believe, labeled as a Dystopian. But not really. Okay, not that much. Indigo kids are a bunch of kids who are psychics. And then there's this church (why church? because they are hybrids? I mean, they are not made by experimenting...) who are hunting the Indigo or Crystal children.

The way it was written let us see what was inside of their minds. Rayne is a normal kid. Lucas, her brother is an Indigo kid. Gabriel is a Crystal child. A much more hybrid than Indigo. It all comes back to Gabriel. The story mostly was all about him. The others were just uh... side story.

He got lots of secrets. Which he kept for self-preservation. And goodness, I only realised his connection with the church after 90%! LOL. I am that slow on picking things like that. :P

So... I'll give this 2.5 for the way it was delivered, 3.5 for the story and 3 for capturing my attention after the 5th chapter. That'll be 3 stars. :) ( )

Maybe I'll come back to it at a later date.. but I haven't liked what I've read so far very much.. so off the reading pile it goes.