"The Vanishing Girl" by Laura Thalassa

Page Count: 338 Pages

Publish Date: March 15, 2014

Genre: New Adult/Romance/Science Fiction

Synopsis: Every night after Ember Pierce falls asleep, she disappears. She can teleport anywhere in the world - London, Paris, her crush's bedroom - wherever her dreams lead her. Ten minutes is all she gets, and once time's up, she returns to her bed. It's a secret she's successfully kept for the last five years. But now someone knows.

A week after her eighteenth birthday, when frustratingly handsome Caden Hawthorne captures her, delivers her to the government, and then disappears before her eyes, Ember realizes two things: One, she is not alone. And two, people like her - teleporters - are being used as weapons.

Dragged off to a remote facility where others like her live, Ember's forced to pair up with her former captor, Caden, to learn how to survive inside until she can escape. Only Caden's making escape seem less and less appealing.

But even as Ember falls for the boy who got her into this mess, she knows that she is running out of time. Because the government has plans for those like her, and those  plans might just cost Ember her life.

Review: This sounded incredibly promising when I read the summary. Teleporters being used as weapons and a vague government menace sounds exactly like something that I would like to read for fun. However, Ember ended up being an irritating character surrounded by undeveloped one-dimensional background characters. The only two that get any real personality are Ember and Caden so it's hard to really feel for any of the others when something happens to them.

That wasn't my biggest problem with this book. That goes to the romance between Ember and Caden. It happened ridiculously fast. They knew each other for what? Two weeks? And suddenly they're confessing their undying love for each other and having sex in the woods - which was kind of gross to read. Their romance happened way too fast.



The girl-on-girl hate in this book was very frustrating. Desiree and her feud with Ember because Ember is taking Caden away from Desiree is ridiculous. It was also totally unnecessary. Normal people just don't act like that.


My last complaint about this book is with the science. Normally, I'm pretty good about suspension of disbelief and I love a good sci-fi book but this one really was a stretch. The kind of genetics work they were talking about was far fetched to put nicely.



It wasn't all terrible, but there were glaring problems with it that I couldn't ignore. So, I would definitely pass on reading this one. Or, if you must read it because the cover is just gorgeous, borrow it from a friend or a local library.

Rating: 2 STARS