Stacia in Progress

[Insert Random Political Name Here] Eats Babies 3.25 stars. Just a hunch on my part, but it would appear that this author has an axe to grind with conservatives after reading some of the snide commentary in The Rules. Hey, I'm all for everyone having the right to agree/disagree with whatever's going on out in the "real world," but I'd rather not read about what's distasteful to an author in my books. For a moment, I thought I was in the middle of campaign season and watching one of those "Campaign Opponent X is teh debil" ads. This is a tough book to review. I can see why the sell might be a little difficult. I wasn't a big fan of the first half of this story and had to settle in for a while before it started to grow on me. Since we as readers are plopped down into the middle of high school drama right off the bat, I can see how some people might want to possibly bail out early on. Something about the writing style read as pnr-grade fluffy at the start, but it did breach the realm of sci-fi the further into the book we got. Unfortunately, you have to slog through a lot of the fluff to get there. I really wish YA sci-fi would stop trying to be pnr. If I want gossip and dating woes, I'll just read a pnr or foamy contemporary. Yes, I know...I'm the one who loved Under the Never Sky for character development, even though the technology part of the world-building was murky. But that's beside the point. Even though I can find things to like about fluff sci-fi, this doesn't mean that I want all sci-fi to be fluff. I'm starting to feel like my intelligence is being insulted. YA READERS CAN ACTUALLY HANDLE A BOOK WHERE THE ROMANCE IS NOT LARGER THAN THE STORY ITSELF. I promise.However, you readers who might be skeptical after reading my complaints - just go with me here. It does get better.Okay, so if we're going to have the romance, at least I'm happy to say that I was not entirely opposed to what was being offered. Zane doesn't stand out as a "new favorite guy," but his role in all of this started to make sense the further we got into the story. While I'm sort of off-and-on when it comes to this new trend of rotating PoV's, I think that Zane's PoV was necessary, otherwise he would have blended into the woodwork.When we got into the home stretch of the book, we got to get a taste of what these alien half-breeds could do. Some interesting powers came into play. I can see how there is big potential to turn this tale into a big struggle between those who want freedom and those who want to harness the power. There is the power to manipulate objects and the power to read minds. Who knows what else these people can do? I hope to find out more.This author has a flair for humor, which is always welcome. Between the person having a fear of the Hamburger Helper glove, to the teacher thinking that she wanted to ride the chick's dad like a prize stallion (that would suck to have to hear someone thinking such a thing about your father!), there were several moments which had me chuckling. If you're struggling with the first part of the book like I did, I'd encourage you to stick it out and see if you eventually latch on.Most people didn't even think aliens really existed. And among those who did believe, "my" relatives had a bad rep. Little, gray, and creepy. Known for cattle mutilations, abductions, and an extreme fascination with probing of all kinds.HAH.This book provided from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes are from the pre-release copy and may not be present from the final copy.