Here's the problem with most dystopian and, well, pretty much every YA paranormal, fantasy, and sci-fi story published today: the author--or more likely, the author's agent or publisher--is much more concerned with how "action oriented" or quickly paced a story is, than actually developing characters, motivations, and relationships to drive that story. For someone like me who *needs* well developed characters and motivations, this just makes most stories published nowadays very bland and un-impacting. Honestly, as someone who writes character-centric stories and who has tried to get said stories published, I'm almost certain this is more the "industry" cutting books down until they're mostly just plot with no real emotive value, than the author. And I think that's just sad. 
 Possession felt to me like it was only pieces of the original story written by the author. Honestly, while reading I would stop and have to re-read a section sure I'd missed something. I was so confused about what was going on and what was motivating Violet to do, say, and think the things she did. It made no sense. 
 The world in which she lived in was not well defined at all. It really was like when this book was edited the editor just x'd out large portions of explanatory narration and deemed them unnecessary. Same goes with characterization. There just wasn't enough to bring Violet or her world to life. 
 I'm being truthful when I say that I really don't fault the author. I bet she has paragraph upon paragraph of cut material in a folder somewhere that someone told her to remove for "pacing issues" or whatever. The reason I believe this is because *every single time* I read a new paranormal or dystopian novel I get the same feeling: that I'm reading a stripped down version of what the author actually wrote. 
 My vote is to slow it down a little and allow more time to fully develop the world and the characters in these stories. The whole point in telling stories is to let us (the reader) escape and live in these characters worlds for a little while, to be someone else, to learn and grow and feel with them. The heart of any story is its characters and I just feel like most YA novels published lately are being made to cut the things that make their stories and characters unique and relatable. Possession has really fallen victim to that in my opinion. Too much emphasis on plot than world or character building. I can't get into the plot if I don't care about the people who are living through it.