One night, when a strange red moon fills the sky, six school girls find themselves in an abandoned theme park, drawn there by a mysterious force. A student has just been found dead. Everyone suspects suicide. Everyone - except them.
In that derelict fairground an ancient prophecy is revealed. They are The Chosen Ones, a group of witches, bound together by a power, one which could destroy them all. But they soon learn that despite their differences they need each other in order to master the forces that have been awakened within them.
High school is now a matter of life and death. Because the killing has only just begun.
Sara B. Elfgren started her career in the film industry as a screenwriter. As a script doctor, she has been involved in several Swedish film and TV-productions.The Circle is her debut novel.Mats Strandberg is an author and a journalist. He is a regular columnist for Sweden’s biggest evening newspaper Aftonbladet and 2004 the organization Sveriges Tidskrifter (Sweden’s Newspapers and Magazines) awarded him the title Columnist of the Year.Mats Strandberg has previously released three books, of which the third one,Half Lifes was awarded Book of the Year 2009 by QX.
This review is going to be as hard to write as this book was to leave in the bookstore. I am not a paranormal YA reader. I try them sometimes when I see people cheer over a book and usually get annoyed very fast and put it down. When I first saw this book I was like oww pretty cover but it is paranormal YA so I am not even going to give it a try. Plus honestly I have not seen this book around the YA blogs I follow so if it is not on their radar it must be nothing... but it had such a pretty cover and the story could be good... and the cover..
Yeah you guess right. I put the book on my Christmas list in the end and finally came around to read it. My first reaction.. Hello pretty cover. My second reaction ... He! this was not an awful YA book where parents seem nonexistent and teenagers seem like wild drunken drugged sex monsters. Do not get me wrong, the teenagers in this book do have sex (though not really explicit), they drink and there is also drugs in the story but it is not a common factor. Plus they live with parents who do ask questions about their weird behavior and have normal parent child interactions. That was actually very pleasant.The story itself is slow. There is a lot of tension implied but there is not really a big explosion. Still the tension makes that you want to continue reading. There is a lot of pain and loss and sad in this book and it is very well described making it easy to be pulled in the dark emotions that are running trough the story. The story is told from different point of views but this was not really disturbing. I actually felt that we missed a few and would have liked to know more about Ida and Linnéa.
The main group of characters could have been any six girls from any high school. Though they grew up together and know each other they are not the best friends and some even are enemies. They have to work on their differences to get trough the situations but it does not come natural. You get to see inside their head and their fears and doubts are honest and normal. This makes it very easy to connect with the girls. What I did feel sorry about was the fact the only guy left so soon. I think it could have been nice to have a guy in the group. Now it is six girls and though they are from various personality types they are girls.
The paranormal stuff did not really impress me though. I am not sure if it had to do with the way their powers developed or the way things where explained but it did not really have the magic feel some paranormal books can have.
De Cirkel
Author: Mats Strandberg & Sara B. Elfgren
Publisher: A.W. Bruna Uitgeverij
ISBN-10: 9400501226
ISBN-13:9789400501225
Pages: 408
Format: Paperback
Original title: Cirkeln
Series: Engelfors #1
A.W. Bruna Uitgeverij: eBook | Paperback
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