Essence
by Hayley Gabrielle
Rating:
3-3.5/5
I received a free ebook in exchange for
an honest book review. Overall, it was a really cute book and I see on GR that
there’s a sort of prequel (???) that’s coming out and that sounds pretty
interesting too!
So this book is about a girl named Abbey Shader that finds herself in a completely foreign world. She is essentially brought to a different planet to become the Melder of Essences. Basically, she’s supposed to wield her power to shape humanity because the Essences are basically entities of humanity (like Good, Evil, etc.).
Confused? So is Abbey. Usually having a confused narrator makes me dislike them, but Abbey has this energy and wit that makes me laugh. She just wants to go back home, and is skeptical about everything that is happening, which is great. She isn’t just like “ok cool let’s do this”. No, she just wants to get out. I enjoyed reading in her point of view
(especially when she meets Balvinder and Zac).
This story felt like a combination of the movie TomorrowLand and Inside Out, with a hint of Percy Jackson’s sarcasm and fun. But obviously, the author did a great job creating her own world filled with its own unique magic! It was really interesting meeting the Essences (the conversations were honestly some of my favorite scenes to read, just because they were just cute and fun!) and seeing Abbey’s journey through this foreign world.
The one thing I truly enjoyed about this book was the fact that even when I put it down for some time to read other books, I would come back to this and not feel any more lost (than usual, I mean… Abbey has a lot to learn about Ethra). Abbey would recap some major points every once in a while (nothing to make it redundant, but just enough to make everything easy to understand without having to think too much) and that helped a lot because I’m literally the worst at remembering things.
I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for a nice, light read. If you like magic, sarcasm, teenagers that literally have no idea what they’re doing, and exploring traits of humanity in a fun an interesting way, this book may be the right fit for you! It was just a fun story!
Star is All Booked Up 