Review: Luminous by Dawn Metcalf

Title: Luminous

Author: Dawn Metcalf

Series: Stand Alone

Pages: 304

Published: Available now from Dutton

ISBN: 9780525422471

Source: Teen Book Scene Arranged Tour

Description: As reality slips and time stands still, Consuela finds herself thrust into the world of the Flow. Removed from all she loves into this shifting world overlapping our own, Consuela quickly discovers she has the power to step out of her earthly skin and cloak herself in new ones-skins made from the world around her, crafted from water, fire, air. She is joined by other teens with extraordinary abilities, bound together to safeguard a world they can affect, but where they no longer belong. When murder threatens to undo the Flow, the Watcher charges Consuela and elusive, attractive V to stop the killer. But the psychopath who threatens her new world may also hold the only key to Consuela's way home.

I Give This ...

 

This was interesting.  It's a story that in all honesty is really hard to grasp.  This might sound odd but it sort of reminds of a twisted dream that the author has somehow been able to capture into words.

Consuela can upzip her skin and have her skeleton step out of it.  A thought that really disturbed me, but really no odder than any of the other talents in the Flow.  V can step through mirrored surfaces, Tender eats pain, etc.  All of their gifts help them save the lives of people on earth.  People who have the greatest capacity to effect the most amount of people in their lifetime.  Which I understood the purpose, just seemed to contradict the idea that when it's your time, well it's your time.  

While I finally began to understand the idea of what these people in the flow could do, I never really cared about them.  To many of them are killed off before you even get a chance to know them.   I wasn't sure what to think of V.  Sometimes it felt like his character we thrown in there to give the story a twist and to give Consuela a love interest.  As for our main character Consuela, I liked her for the most part.  I think my favorite character was Tender.  I really enjoyed his backstory and his place in the flow.

The story was just really hard to get into.  I often felt like it was a metaphor for something and I just wasn't getting it.  An interesting idea though.

Guest Post with Dawn Metcalf author of Luminous

I was really intrigued by the idea that people have powers in the Flow, so I asked Dawn what power she would have.   And here is what she said ...

If I had a power in the Flow, I think I'd like the ability to be able to physically reach out and touch the unique spark that lives in everybody. That might sound a bit "aww, fluffy!", but I assure you that I'm a wry, twisted cynic with the heart of an idealist, but I really do mean it. Think about it like this: who you are as a human being exists once in forever. The variables of where you were born, when you were born, your particular family, friends, experiences and opinions is a combination that has never happened in exactly that way before and will never happen in exactly that way ever again. Each person is a 100% unique individual and, if you're inclined to believe it, a once-in-a-lifetime divine gift to the world. If you can become aware of that when you're meeting another person, or (even better) realize that about yourself, then I think we'd all be a lot nicer to ourselves and one another.

So if I could reach out a finger and touch that firefly of light that rings like a chime inside your heart so you knew it and felt it without doubt, remembering it always? Yeah, I'd like to do that.

“I like my books like my chocolate–
dark, bittersweet, and a little bit nutty.”

 

Short Version:
If you want to know about me, read one of my books.
Or ask my mom, she’ll tell you.

Medium Version:
I have no good excuse for the way I write. I lived in a normal, loving, suburban home, studied hard, went to college, went to graduate school, got married, had babies, and settled down in northern Connecticut. Despite this wholesome lifestyle, I was clearly corrupted by fairy tales, puppet visionaries, British humour and graphic novels. As a result, I write dark, quirky, and sometimes humorous speculative fiction.

Luminous by Dawn Metcalf

Release Date: July 7, 2011

As reality slips and time stands still, Consuela finds herself thrust into the world of the Flow. Removed from all she loves into this shifting world overlapping our own, Consuela quickly discovers she has the power to step out of her earthly skin and cloak herself in new ones-skins made from the world around her, crafted from water, fire, air. She is joined by other teens with extraordinary abilities, bound together to safeguard a world they can affect, but where they no longer belong.

When murder threatens to undo the Flow, the Watcher charges Consuela and elusive, attractive V to stop the killer. But the psychopath who threatens her new world may also hold the only key to Consuela's way home.