Goodreads Synopsis: Eighteen-year-old Moira, an air elemental, never thought that waking up with an unusual blue fire on her arm would turn her life upside down. Determined to figure out why she has an element she shouldn’t have, her parents take her to a secluded island to keep her safe from anyone who might want to experiment on her. There she meets Noah, a boy who seems to know a lot about her elements. As he introduces her to a group of a new kind of elementals who are more powerful than anyone could have imagined, she doesn’t know if she can trust them, especially because the group’s leader, Jaiden, has an extremely dangerous ability. But when her parents get kidnapped by a mysterious man, she has no choice but to turn to Noah and Jaiden for help.

My Review: Moira lives in a world where everyone has either magic powers called elements, or they have magic disease where they steal others powers like vampires. It seemed interesting from the description and I liked the cover so I thought I would give it a shot next when it popped up on my kindle app. Usually I'm not big fans of books about magic because they're kind of cheesey, but I liked this one. Magic disease isn't really something I've read about before, so that was cool to learn about. I liked the main character, she seemed to act her age, and I also liked the other characters in the story, and their kind of little teenage runaway gang thing they had going. It was an exciting book and I couldn't predict the ending, so I wasn't really sure where this book as going. I didn't want to put it down and although it's not my new favourite boo, I will eventually read the next book in the series. Check it out if you haven't already! I got it from amazon and it took about three or four hours to finish. Thanks for reading!

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This story was okay in my opinion. I liked the beginning of the story when Moira was discovering that she had two elements. But when her parents, and later “friends”, started openly hiding secrets it was getting very frustrating. I felt like we, the audience, just weren’t getting the amount of information to be engaged in the story for any length of time. She was constantly on the run from some evil person/group or throwing herself intentionally in their presence. I did feel that some of her actions were believable, like when she tried to get back in the house to save her parents from Marlau but at the same time, there wasn’t anything that she could have done to help them because she didn’t really know what was going on. I would have also liked to have read more about her practice in depth and her training but we didn’t get more than the “she tried and tried and after x times she was able to do it”. I had higher hopes for this story and felt a little let down by the end. ( )

Different, written by Alycia Linwood, is the first in a planned series, about a young adult girl who lives in a world where everyone has magical powers or elements, well actually, just one element. Those who have more than one element are deemed “tainted” and must be stripped of their elements to avoid becoming uncontrollably violent. Moira, the main character, discovers she has two elements. She falls in with a group who claim they are like her, with more than one element and can teach her. But she is never certain who is telling her the truth: her new found friends, her mother, or the agency her mother works for. Moira’s world begins a descent into dystopia with its threads of governmental conspiracy, genetic tinkering, and evil-doers as she tries to escape the grasp of those who would do her harm.

Ms. Linwood tells a solid story with an interesting and intriguing plot, but her story seems to be filled with stock characters who are moved about from plot point to plot point. The narration, as told from the point of view of Moira, is filled with a young teen’s angst of insecurity, love, and betrayal.Tween readers should enjoy this action-packed, fast read if they don’t mind the “to be continued” ending. ( )

My opinion of the book changed frequently, but if you need to know only one thing, I'll definitely be buying the sequel, and I'm also looking into the prequels. The idea is good, tho I would like more explained at the beginning (the prequels maybe). I also thought the transitions through the story could have been smoother. Very adventure packed, fast paced, kept me interested. I recommend for fans of magic stories. ( )