ARC Review: Blur by Steven James

Blur by Steven James

The isolated town of Beldon, Wisconsin, is shocked when a high school freshman’s body is found in Lake Algonquin. Just like everyone in the community, sixteen-year-old Daniel Byers believes that Emily Jackson’s death was accidental. But at her funeral, when he has a terrifying vision of her, his world begins to rip apart at the seams.

Convinced that Emily’s appearance was more than just a mere hallucination, Daniel begins to look carefully into her death, even as he increasingly loses the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality.

What’s real? What’s not? Where does reality end and madness begin?

As Daniel struggles to find the truth, his world begins to crumble around him as he slips further and further into his own private blurred reality.

Full of mind-bending twists and turns, Blur launches a new trilogy of young adult thrillers from Steven James, a master of suspense.

Pages: 368

Format: Ebook (also in Paperback and Audiobook)

Published by: Skyscape

Genre: YA Mystery

Release Day: May 27th, 2014

Rating:

Review:

First I need to mention how gorgeous the cover of this book is! The beginning was interesting. It started off in the future (compared to when the rest of the book takes place) and explained what would be occurring during the book. The last line of the prologue immediately snagged my attention, and I didn't even want to put the book down to sleep, it was just that good. Even with knowing what the blur was like in the beginning, I was pleasantly shocked when it actually occurred because what I had imagined from the brief description didn't really prepare me for the blur was actually like. I thought it was more like visions in the mind, but the blur was like coming-to-life visions taking place in reality. One thing that stood out a lot to me was that Daniel was not portrayed in a stereotypical way, for instance a lot of times football players (like Daniel) are portrayed as the bullies whereas Daniel is the kid who stands up to bullies and doesn't take pleasure in picking on others. Not to mention that he isn't as confident as a lot of male characters are portrayed which was definitely an added bonus. Kyle was the same way with an addition of him being funny. It was easily to like the characters that Steven James has woven into the story. All-in-all, I thought the characters were very well-written. Stacey kept me guessing because I wanted to know exactly how she played into the story and who she basically was. When I found out, I wasn't 100% shocked, but I wasn't 100% accurate in my assumption either, so I liked that. I really enjoyed Nicole (and not just because Nicole is my middle name), but because it was literally like I was reading about myself. I found myself double-guessing how the story would end up or who was doing what, and I liked that I wasn't 100% confident in how I thought it was going to end. When I finished the last page, I was deeply disappointed that I could not pick up the next book in the series and start right away, because it was that phenomenal of a story.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys YA books.

Note: I received this book free from Netgalley and Steven James in exchange for an honest review.