In short: The Holders by Julianna Scott offers nothing particularly new or intriguing to an overdone and cliched plot. 
 Stop me if you've heard this one before: Secret boarding school where kids with special abilities - called Holders - are brought to learn how to control them. The two most powerful Holders in the world - one bad and one good - have radically different and decisive points of view that cause great amounts of conflict. The bad guy believes Holders are a superior race and should take control of regular humans. The good guy believes Holders should live peacefully with humans. Sound like X-Men? That's because it pretty much is... with Celtic mythology thrown in. Abilities were granted to people a long time ago by the Irish gods and carried on through the generations. Only Irish people have these special abilities because apparently they are the only ones who are worthy of them for some reason. 
 The Holders had a ton of elements that I really love in books - namely boarding schools, superpowers, mythology - but was way too cliched and predictable, unfortunately. Had I read it in junior high, I probably would have loved it, but at this point the plot was so familiar and overdone to me that it wasn't really enough to keep my attention. The Holders offered nothing particularly original to me and I am tired of the same old tropes. Also, I found the writing and execution of the plot to be fairly young and inexperienced, but this may not be a problem for everyone as it was a pretty easy read as a result. 
 I do think it's the characters that save The Holders. Becca was instantly likeable to me as the hot-headed and protective older sister to Ryland. Alex, Becca's love interest was super sweet and succumbed to blushing easily, which was pretty cute. Their romance, though not particularly earth-shattering, was sweet, as well. I also had fun with the secondary characters of The Holders, who were all humourous and delightful. Though The Holders offered nothing new or intriguing to grab my attention, I would recommend it to people who find comfort in easy and predictable plots and easily likeable characters.