I really wanted to like this book, if only because I really enjoyed Aprilynne Pike's Laurel/Wings series and even liked Life After Theft, which got mixed reviews. The premise for this book sounded pretty good. Unfortunately, there were just too many things about this book that makes me realize I probably shouldn't have tried to read it in the first place. If you're wondering whether this is a good book for you, here were the red flags I ignored, without spoilers: 
 1. Love just happens. First sight not even really required. We get a lot about how much Tavia loves Benson, but does the reader really care? Hmm, I'll have to check the reviews to see if there are any "Benson fans" so to speak, but I'm guessing that with or without the revelations at the end, he just isn't any sort of interesting love interest or even character in general. Sure, we get it, Tavia loves him with the desperation of a girl who has gone through a great trauma and has found ONE person in the whole world to cling to... But then, what is this instant love/lust thing with Quinn? More desperation? He's not even really a character in the book, he's like the idea of one, but that's okay because...you know, it's fate. I guess that alone should've been a red flag for me personally, because I hate these predestined-to-love-forever/lovers-for-10000-lifetimes kind of pseudo-romance, mainly because it doesn't seem like there's anything romantic about it. Judging by the average YA novels these days, people do find this appealing, so I guess it's just me. If you agree with the above though, I doubt you'll like this book. 
 2. Emotions! Tavia feels them! Unfortunately, I didn't, at all. The whole book felt kind of dead to me, maybe because no one was actually part of the book long enough for me to form any kind of attachment to them except Benson. There was no development with Benson, he's just there. Tavia was already lovey/lusty over him from pg. 24 and that was that. There's a pretty cliche awkward angle about how they don't want to risk the best friends relationship, but we also were told about this "best friend" thing around, well, pg. 24. Usually first person narration helps the reader get into the head and emotions of the main character, but in this case, it never seemed to happen for me. 
 3. Idiotic and unrealistic decision making. Look, even when the stakes are supposedly life or death, most of the book just doesn't make sense because Tavia's actions just don't make sense. I'm pretty sure even people who really loved this book would agree that there were some things that were a huge stretch, and I'm not talking about any supernatural/fantasy elements. 
 Anyway, this is a very small pet peeve compared to the above, but did any one else notice how Tavia thinks/feels/speaks in italics? Pretty much every page has italicized verbs, even cringe-worthy phrases like "I feel it." How did the editor miss this? Seriously, anyone who has the book in front of you, turn to any page and look for the italics. I just flipped through starting on a random page and 22 pages in a row had an absurd amount of italicization. One single page had "I know" three times. 
 I don't know if I just never noticed this with Pike's other books, but it's one of those things that once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere and it makes Tavia's narration progressively more irritating :(