Review: Afterimage (The Enertia Trials #1) by J. Kowallis

Title: Afterimage
Series: The Enertia Trials

Author: J. Kowallis

My rating: 4 hearts

Genre: New Adult, Dystopia, Romance

Pub. date: May 7th 2015

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Synopsis: Reggie’s dreams . . .

aren’t dreams.

Visions of the future flood her mind like shards of broken puzzles. Caged in her cell, every morning begins the same. She’s drugged, tortured, and images are torn from her memory by Public One.

Until the morning everything changes. The vision is different. The future’s never been about her, and now she knows they’re coming for her:

Nomads.

How will she convince them to keep her alive when Nate, their leader, doesn’t like or even trust her? To him, she’s a science experiment. A machine.

When Public One will do anything to keep her, Reggie must make a decision: remain a slave to her past, or risk her future to venture into a world more terrifying than she’s ever known. (synopsis from Goodreads)

I really enjoyed reading this book. I don’t usually read Dystopias, I’ve only read two or three ones, but this one sounded so good, and I’ve heard so many good things about it, that I just had to make an exception. And I did not regret it! I loved the characters, there was a lot of character development, and the plot was unique and interesting. A must-read!

I loved the characters!

There were a lot of great characters in this book, and I loved them all, but I’ll talk more about Reggie and Nate. Reggie has no memories of her early life, so she doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t a prisoner at Public One. Despite this, she still dreams of something else. She remains hopeful about her future, and I loved this about her. Despite everything she’s been through, she stays positive. Reggie also has a special ability; she can see the future. I loved reading about her; she was so relatable.

Nate is basically the opposite. He’s been through a lot, lost all of his family in a very short time, he’s been to war, and has seen some of the worst of humanity. And he is very pessimistic about the world and about people in general. He has some major trust issues.

There was some serious character development in this book!

Reggie changes a lot throughout the book, after she leaves Public One and makes some friends, she learns a lot about the world and about herself that is bound to change anyone, but whatever development she goes through is nothing compared to the changes Nate goes through. I don’t want to say too much and spoil anything, but he really is like a new person at the end of the book. He realizes how wrong he is about the world and he changes. I loved to see his journey.

The plot was really unique and interesting.

To sum it up, there was a world war three, and the people’s solution was to start trying to create perfect people, people with special abilities, people like Reggie. This resulted in the Publics. Now, the world that Kowallis has created is really dark and devastating, and I loved it! This is pretty much what you don’t want the future to look like. Anything but this. And the way we got introduced to this dystopian world, gradually, throughout the whole book, was amazing. Kowallis didn’t give us a full history lesson in the first few chapters; she let bits and pieces into conversations and thoughts, and it felt very natural, not at all forced.

I have mixed feelings about the writing.

I really liked the atmosphere that the writing created, it really fit the book, but there were things that I didn’t like, that bothered me through the book. I can’t really put my finger on what it was, but there was something that really annoyed me. So there were good and bad things about the writing, but all in all, I think the writing was really good for the book.

To sum it up, I loved Afterimage! Great character development, a dark, futuristic world and writing that makes it all feel so authentic makes for a great read. I don’t want to say I fell in love with the world, because it’s so dark it gives me nightmares, but I really enjoyed reading about it. Afterimage is an intense, dark and devastating read, and it will have you hooked from page one. It’s easily the best Dystopia I’ve ever read!