Hardcover, 288 pages
Published March 1st 2012 by Scholastic Point (first published February 29th 2012)
Source: LibrarySynopsis:
When you can see things others can’t, what do you do when someone’s watching you?
Everybody knows about Clarity “Clare” Fern. She’s the psychic girl in school, the one who can place her hands on something and see hidden visions from the past.
Only Clare would rather not be a celebrity. She prefers hanging back, observing. Her gift is not a game to her.
But then someone starts playing with her head . . . and heart. Messages and gifts from a secret admirer crop up everywhere Clare turns. Could they be from Gabriel, the gorgeous boy who gets Clare’s pulse racing? Or from Justin, Clare’s hopeful ex-boyfriend who’d do anything to win her back?
One thing is certain. Clare needs to solve this mystery, and soon. Because the messages are becoming sinister, and a girl in town has suddenly disappeared.
Review:
Disclaimer: I thought Clarity was quite a likable character in the first installment of this series/whatever it is. Whatever happened between the first and second book, I am not sure but what I do know is that I no longer like Clarity as much as I did.
Maybe it’s the sophomore syndrome that causes authors to take characters who were perfectly awesome in the first book and turn them into really unlikable and annoyingly Mary Sue-ish characters in the second book. Maybe. I don’t know. What I do know is that Clarity now sits in the ranks of the heroines in books by Lili St. Crow (Defiance etc) and Jaclyn Dolamore (Under the something something). Forgive the flippancy but ohmygollygoodness. I liked the first novel in the series (I am calling it that) because at the heart of it, it was a mystery and I have a thing for mysteries.
Perception tries to be a mystery. No…well…not really. It doesn’t. It pretends it’s a mystery. It’s not. What it is is a soap opera with Clarity in the lead and several eligible, smoking hot boys orbiting her. There are four boys who have a thing for Clarity in this novel. One of them stalker so I guess he only counts half as much. One of them is her best friend’s brother who has not yet made his intentions and attentions explicit. One is Gabriel who is hot hot hot and did I mention, hot? The other is Justin who is hot as well but not as hot as Gabriel and has the distinction of being cheating on Clarity when they were going out together. Right. There is a mother with a loud personality and a tendency to read her daughter’s mind, privacy be damned. A brother who is kinda intriguing. A girl who becomes Clarity’s best friend but has shades of lesbian-ish feelings (which is just a decoy because really, she only loves Clarity for her friendship and not, as is insinuated at several instants, her body).
Into this cast, you throw in some missing people, a spirit and Clarity’s desire to play Veronica Mars and you get Perception. This still may have been half entertaining had Clarity not been so sanctimonious. Everyone wants to be her friend, now, see, and Clarity, well, she’s just so cool and all she doesn’t need friends. There are lots of mean girls in this one who want to steal either Justin or Gabriel, I’m not sure. There is Clarity who doesn’t try to be different but just is because she’s a special snowflake. Did I mention that someone is stalking her? Which is the whole mystery but is not really because you figure it out the exact moment the new character is introduced because why else would he be introduced?
You may have not noticed it but I was displeased by this book. A lot. As such I can’t recommend it to you. Read the first one and pretend it ends there. It’ll be good for you.
What a disappointment. I hate when you expect a book to continue with awesome character development, but then it just fails.