Twisted

Series: Intertwined (#3)
Genre: Adventure
Author: Gena Showalter
Publisher: Harlequin Teen

By this point in the Intertwined series, you either love it or you hate it. Put this reviewer in the former camp, but I am well aware that it's not for everybody. In reviewing the previous two books, I noted the randomness of the plot, the way it picks up and drops plotlines at random, and the occasional out-of-character moments. I also noted that, on the whole, the books rise above that by being unique, unpredictable, and plain old fun. Book three more or less stays the course in that respect, serving up a fun little read, albeit not exactly thought-provoking.

Unraveled

Series: Intertwined (#2)
Genre: Adventure/Romance
Author: Gena Showalter
Publisher: Harlequin Teen

I noted that Intertwined didn't seem to know what it wanted to be, and consequently wound up reading kind of like a series of X-Men comics. Unraveled, however, seems to have decided that a series of X-Men comics is exactly what it wants to be. And so we get a lot of different plot threads coming at us one after another, to the point where you wonder if any of them are going to be tied up. There are indeed some closure problems, and by the end of the book some stuff seems to have been awkwardly pushed aside in favor of more interesting stories to come. But enough is explained, and the ride is exciting enough just in the present, that all in all it's still a worthwhile read.

Intertwined

Series: Intertwined (#1)
Genre: Adventure
Author: Gena Showalter
Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Sometimes, I run into books that put me in a quandary. Sometimes I'll read a book and like it, but have much more to say about what it does wrong than what it does right. I've got a lot of complaints about Intertwined. But for all that I'm about to heap on it, the one thing I can't say is that I disliked it. In fact, it was a lot of fun. Admittedly it was sometimes a RiffTrax kind of fun, but I kept reading, and even finished ahead of schedule, so Showalter must be doing something right.