Review: Conjured by: Sarah Beth Durst

Conjured by: Sarah Beth Durst (2013)

368 pages

Genre: YA/Supernatural

 Source: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley.

Purchase: Barnes and Noble | Amazon

Goodreads Summary: Eve has a new home, a new face, and a new name—but no memories of her past. She’s been told that she's in a witness protection program. That she escaped a dangerous magic-wielding serial killer who still hunts her. The only thing she knows for sure is that there is something horrifying in her memories the people hiding her want to access—and there is nothing they won’t say—or do—to her to get her to remember.

At night she dreams of a tattered carnival tent and buttons being sewn into her skin. But during the day, she shelves books at the local library, trying to not let anyone know that she can do things—things like change the color of her eyes or walk through walls. When she does use her strange powers, she blacks out and is drawn into terrifying visions, returning to find that days or weeks have passed—and she’s lost all short-term memories. Eve must find out who and what she really is before the killer finds her—but the truth may be more dangerous than anyone could have ever imagined.

My Review

Magic, memory loss, witness protection, and a super cute guy is pretty much everything I could want in a book. Too bad this book was such a disaster that it didn't even matter that it had all those things in it. Conjured just wasn't my cup of tea, others may enjoy it, but in no way was it for me.

The beginning of this book was incredibly slow and painfully dull for me. But since it was a review book I powered through, and low and behold it got magical. (Don’t get your hopes up; it was only magical very briefly and for a few instances.) Some of the magic scenes described in this book were breathtaking. There were also a lot of fun scenes in the public library where Eve is working. Who doesn't love when a book semi-takes place in a library? On the other hand, these two things were literally the only good parts about this book. Everything else from the boring beginning to the very lame/unbelievable ending made this one of the most unmagical books I have ever read.

Every aspect of this book that is mentioned in the synopsis is very poorly executed. The characters were undeniably forgettable. Eve doesn’t know herself and is suffering from memory loss, I thought this would be really interesting and was eagerly waiting for her to recall her memories, but the times when she does were not fulfilling.  Also, Eve’s “aunt” is so ridiculous and rude that I can’t stand her. Not to mention the world building that didn't really exist. I didn’t get enough information about the witness protection program that I would have liked, heck I didn’t get enough information about the magical elements in this book too, (and other things that I can't mention because they would ruin the plot) really I couldn't get lost in the world because I had no idea what type of world it really was. As the story progresses the plot gets weirder and weirder, but at least it actually starts to go somewhere after the very dull beginning. Then when we get to the big reveal... it was way too strange for my taste and was a huge let down. I wanted to stop reading it immediately. The only reason I kept going was because I only had like 30 pages left.

I guess it is safe to say that I won’t be reading this book again and probably won’t read any more books by this author. I encourage you to pass on Conjured. The synopsis sounds amazing, but was just really misleading.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley.