A book by Hilary Duff. Oh, where does one begin? 
 Let's start with the cover? It's beautiful... simple... a little elegant and a little modern. I love the font, love the colors, and even particularly enjoy the font on the inside dust jacket description of the book. No complaints here. 
 So, moving to the story? That's where it gets a bit more convoluted. 
 The main character of ELIXIR is Clea Raymond, a 17 year old daughter of a well-known politician and a famous surgeon who, herself, has somehow become a notarized photojournalist despite her age. We learn that Clea's father has disappeared during a humanitarian mission, and of course Clea is intent on getting to the bottom of what really happened. To make things more eerie, she's started noticing a shadowy image in most of her photographs --- that of a handsome young man in a leather jacket, who she knows she's never met before. 
 Soon, Clea starts dreaming of herself as different women during various points of history, but each time she is romantically involved with the man from her photographs. Her best-friend-slash-possible-love-interest Ben fears that the man may be a supernatural being, sent to destroy Clea. Turns out that he was also present in Clea's father's photographs, which adds to the mystery. 
 Now, it's a good thing that Ben is conveniently a knowledge buff who can instantaneously link the strange clues that Clea's father leaves behind, as they soon travel abroad to uncover "the mystery beyond [Clea's] father's disappearance, and the "centuries old truth behind [the] intense bond" between Clea and the mystery man from the photographs -- who she happens to meet in real life. 
 When I started the book, I was really impressed by the writing style. Everything flowed nicely, it didn't feel "too teen," and there was a decent variety in the chosen vocabulary. I enjoyed the plot-line as Clea first uncovered the mysterious man in the photographs, and was even interested as she planned her trip back to the site of the humanitarian mission to piece together the mysterious clues left by her father. 
 From here, though-- somewhere around page 250 -- I just lost interest. The writing felt a bit more cliche, the characters felt underdeveloped, and I pretty much don't even know what was going on. Somehow the group ends up imagining-except-really-being-there instances of being different people in different times, all of which is supposed to "uncover" this "centuries old" mystery. Don't get it. And, it became a bit annoying how things seemed to be TOO convenient. Like, it's just another simple thing to not only hack the surgeon's password but to also figure out the Candy-Land clues he left (on the game board? Really?). And, the character of Ben just felt thrown in to ensure that nobody really had to work to find anything -- because he's a knowledge buff and already knows everything in the universe, after all. Oh, and of course to give us the possibility of a love triangle. Can't possibly have a YA book without that! 
 So, while I loved the first half of the book, the last half was reminiscent of BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS... a story that just dragged on and on to the point that I was ready for the last page. While I don't think ELIXIR was a bad concept in the least, I just don't think I'm interested enough to continue with this series.