When I'd first heard about this book, I'd been ready to dismiss it. Why? Because it's the latest in a long line of novels released through James Frey's fiction factory, Full Fathom Five. I hadn't really kept up with everything he'd released, as there were quite a few books and I'd never been truly impressed with his initial offering, I Am Number Four. It squeezed in far too many elements that are overused in the YA genre of the time period. Now don't get me wrong: I know that FFF-esque production companies have been around forever and are more common than you'd think. I'm not dismissing it because of that, just that in my experience most of the books released through companies of this type are so laden with cliches and tired tropes that they aren't really that memorable later on down the line... at least not for anything overly positive. 
 So when I picked up a free sample of this via a local bookstore, I was actually fairly surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it. So much so, that when I got the chance to pick up an ARC I actually jumped at it. 
 Don't get me wrong: you can easily see where elements of this are clearly calculated to appeal to the current YA market. All of the hallmarks of the average book are here. Love interest in the first book? Heroine with a tragic past? Yup and yup. Using the tried and true "Bad Is Good And Good Is Bad" and "What is Evil?" tropes? Yep, that's here too. Readers won't find much here that isn't already used fairly heavily in similar and similar-ish themed books. It also doesn't help that you can also see where this was planned out with the intent to turn it into a big blockbuster film or TV series ala IAK4, as there are several scenes that are fairly lavish in their description. They'll look great on screen and they are pretty fun to read, but they just kind of occasionally hammer home that this was written as a package deal: books, movie/TV, marketing tie-ins, the works. 
 Yet somehow, despite all of this, Paige makes this all work. She's got a very real knack for drawing the reader in and making you want to continue reading and find out what happens. There are a few elements that I can't help but wonder are her additions, such as Amy's grim resignation at the beginning of the novel, such as in the case of the school hottie. She's not interested in him (which was refreshing) but Amy helps him because she knows he wants the same thing she does: to get out of their small town and on to anything else. 
 The biggest drawback as a whole would have to be that everything is fairly rushed and we have quite a bit of content squished into the first book as a whole. Paige does her best to remedy this, but given that Frey has (reportedly) fairly strict control over the layout of the book(s), we can't really fault her for this. Hopefully as the books continue this will even out and we'll have more time to focus on character development and so on. All in all, this is a pretty strong first novel and it really shows a lot of promise for what Paige could bring to the table in future works, both those she releases under Frey's banner and those she doesn't. 
 (ARC received through Amazon Vine)