Clarity -- Kim Harrington
Clarity Fern is a psychic. When she holds certain objects—in some cases she just has to touch them—she gets glimpses of the past. Sometimes.
Considering that her mother is a telepath and her brother is a medium, her gift isn't really all that out of the ordinary. Within the family, that is—everyone else in Eastport, Massachusetts thinks that they're a bunch of freaks.
Well, mostly everyone. Tourists love the Fern family, and Clare's ex-boyfriend respects her ability, but tourists are a pain—even though they pay the bills—and she's got issues with him, so that's a moot point.
But when a young tourist is found dead—most definitely murdered—the mayor wants the mystery cleared up as quickly and quietly as possible. So Clare gets called in on a strictly unofficial basis. In the pro column, she'll get to work closely with the ridiculously attractive new guy in town. But ultimately, the cons have it, because the ridiculously attractive new guy in town has a beef with psychics and she ALSO has to work with the mayor's son, her ex-boyfriend.
Some thoughts:
- I like the stylized cover art. It doesn't really convey the tone or the storyline, but it fits the title and she looks all mysterious and possibly psychic, so that works.
- I'd like to go a few years without reading another book that begins with a flash of the book's climax, with the remainder of the book being a flashback leading up to that same scene. Yes, it serves as an easy and effective hook, but it's been overused for years. (Even before the Twilight books, the Luxe books and probably half of the recently-published books I could reach from this chair.) It's been in vogue for way too long, and the use of it in Clarity did nothing to change my mind.
- Clarity is set now-ish, and narrated by a 16-year-old, but the pop-cultural references are references that someone closer to my age would make: Rick James and 90210 are both mentioned in the first twenty pages. While I agree that the lyrics to Superfreak are general pop-cultural (US, anyway) knowledge, I found Clare's mention of Mr. James unlikely at best. I could have let that one go—as she's been tormented with the song for years, she'd certainly have a special interest—but the 90210 mention was too much. I tried to explain that one away, too—since there's a new 90210 and all—but the exact quote was "It was our Peach Pit, except we didn't wear designer clothes and drive Ferraris*. Eastport was far from 90210."
- The storyline requires some pretty serious suspension of disbelief in regards to the teenage involvement in policework, but no more so than the Lisa McMann series.
- I was wrong about whodunnit—I identified a suspect early on, and I was totally, totally wrong. So there is that.
- The idea of a mind-reading mother is hilarious, and was occasionally put to good use.
- My main issue with the book—and this is very blunt—was the writing. Much of it is stilted and bland, with a lot of telling rather than showing, and the dialogue is rarely believable. A couple of examples (there were others I'd liked to have used, but they were spoiler-y):
He bent to pick up a candy wrapper. "Like this litter on the boardwalk," he said. "And most shocking of all, a tourist getting killed! Tourists have never been killed before in this town." He poked my shoulder as he asked, "What is your beloved Mayor Spellman going to do about this disgrace?" (pg 53: This, by the way, is a teenager speaking.)
I thought I'd frozen her with my touch, for she didn't move, didn't breathe, even when I let go of her face. Then a single tear escaped from her eye, and she ran past me and out of the room. (pg 133: This brought to mind V.C. Andrews, actually. Maybe it was the use of 'for'.)
All that said, it may go over okay with less-picky fans of McMann's Wake trilogy, though it's not nearly as gritty. But while I had some problems with the Wake books, I at least read all three of them—if a sequel to this one appears, I won't be bothering with it.
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*Because, Ferraris? Not so 'in' now. (Yes, I just put 'in' in quotation marks. I am so very, very old.) I even checked the IMCDb, and according to them, there's only been one glimpse of a Ferrari on the new 90210. So I feel safe in assuming that it was our ever-beloved Steve Sanders who inspired that line, and that just didn't feel right.
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Other paranormal mysteries:
Dead Connection, by Charlie Price
Wake, Fade and Gone by Lisa McMann
Grave Sight, by Charlaine Harris
Blue is for Nightmares, by Laurie Faria Stolarz
Four and Twenty Blackbirds, by Cherie Priest
Jinx, by Meg Cabot
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Book source: Review copy from the publisher. So it's possible that quotes could differ from the finished copy.