Awakening (Sweep, No. 5)

Morgan has escaped an attempt on her life, but now she is confused about who to trust. And there is definitely some evil still happening around town. Is someone still after her or is it something else all together?

I can't help loving these little books. The magic is fun but there are some serious

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messages here too. Tiernan gets the messages across without beating them over your head. I think this is a great series for teens, I can't wait to see what happens next.

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After almost being burned to death by her boyfriend, Cal, Morgan feels betrayed and heart broken. Cal had used her and then tried to murder her, and all because she had the potential to be a very powerful witch. Even after Cal and his mother, Selene, fled before Hunter could bring them to justice,

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Morgan still has strong feelings for Cal. She loved him- even after what he had done.

Her life was in a constant whirlwind of chaos and turmoil. Hunter is now leading the Cirrus and Morgan isn't sure how she feels about that, even though the rest of the coven really enjoy having Hunter as the coven leader. Morgan's biggest problem with Hunter is that even though he annoys her, she can't help feeling drawn to him- she can't help imagining what it would be like to be wrapped up in his arms and to feel his lips pressed against hers passionately. She was so confused about it all.

After feeling dark magic at work, Morgan can't help thinking that it's either Cal or Selene. Hunter believes otherwise and is constantly trying to convince Morgan that the culprit is really someone she knew and trusted, but she doesn't want to believe it- even if she knows deep down that Hunter might be right.

To top it off, Morgan's aunt and her girlfriend are harassed by boys of their neighborhood and Morgan can feel the temptation to use magic to teach them a lesson. She went as far as zapping one of them with witch fire. But how far is she willing to go to ensure that they boys leave her aunt and Paula alone?

Awakening is full of magic, betrayal, passion, and strength. When life is thrown into to turmoil for Morgan Rowlands, she has to find a way to cope with all that's happening- good and bad. Relationships are tested and friendships are on the mend. Another great novel of the sweeps series.

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The first 2-3 books in this series are addictive, a fresh "modern-teen" POV in the tired genre of witches/kids with supernatural powers finding themselves (and the wonder of Wicca) among families/communities who "don't get it".

After #3, it goes downhill. There is no psychological development of the

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main characters (and the secondary characters are quite shallowly described and hard to distinguish throughout the series; even the more promising and believable ones, BFFs Bree & Robbie are essentially dropped from the books by #4) a lot of the narrative suspenseful points are all "tell" and no "show", the conclusions are hurried and tied up nicely--except for a minimum of predictable suspense that the publisher made you have to draw people through the series. Also, each book is so short, (it's like a single chapter of a Harry Potter) that the narrative arc is predictable and hasty, and makes one wonder if these were paid by the book, or that the series was extended way beyond what should have been its natural life span by the publisher, or what.

It's no Harry Potter, that's for sure. Apart from the above flaws, here's no humor (unless you count Morgan's drinking Diet Coke all the time, which gets tired really fast) and no writing good enough to be enjoyed by adults as well (a sure sign of a good children's book).

Also there's way too much touchy-feely Wicca rituals and pseudo Gaelic chanting, which is not well enough written to be convincing and also gets tiresome.

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The fact that I "consumed" the first five books in this series in as many days should tell you two things:

(1) I really enjoyed it; and
(2) Each book is pretty short!

The audio version of each book (which I listened to through my Scribd subscription) is only around 5 hours, but each book basically

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ends on a cliffhanger that the next book takes up immediately. So I feel like I've listened to one long story, rather than five separate ones.

Some things about the series are pretty typical of the young adult fantasy genre: teenagers as the main characters, a love interest gone wrong, the main character discovering her supernatural abilities. But a few aspects bumped the series up a notch from my perspective (as a voracious reader of this genre):

- most of the family members had specific traits that elevated them above mere cliches

- the main character (Morgan) had a believable and positive relationship with her sister (in contrast to the overdone trope of sibling rivalry)

- Morgan and most of her friends are more interested in satisfying their intellectual and spiritual curiosity than in more superficial pursuits

- Morgan is interested in a career in math or science (how refreshing for a female character!)

- much of what Morgan learns about wicca has a ring of authenticity to it (although I'm not a student of it myself); by comparison many YA books about witches seem woefully under-researched

Sadly, I had to stop at the fifth book of a 14-book series because I can't find books 6 and onwards in audio format! The ebook versions also aren't available on Scribd, and I'm not going to purchase Kindle versions that I'll likely never read (given that I almost always prefer audio). Surely the rest of the series will eventually be out on audio!

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The writing in this book is amazing. Every time that Morgan and Hunter were together you could really feel what they were going through. This book blew me away. I cannot wait to see where they go from here.