Review: Split Second by Kasie West

Title: Split Second
Author: Kasie West
Series: Pivot Point, book #2
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: February 11, 2014
Source: borrowed ARC from Sara
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Life can change in a split second.

Addie hardly recognizes her life since her parents divorced. Her boyfriend used her. Her best friend betrayed her. She can’t believe this is the future she chose. On top of that, her ability is acting up. She’s always been able to Search the future when presented with a choice. Now she can manipulate and slow down time, too . . . but not without a price.

When Addie’s dad invites her to spend her winter break with him, she jumps at the chance to escape into the Norm world of Dallas, Texas. There she meets the handsome and achingly familiar Trevor. He’s a virtual stranger to her, so why does her heart do a funny flip every time she sees him? But after witnessing secrets that were supposed to stay hidden, Trevor quickly seems more suspicious of Addie than interested in her. And she has an inexplicable desire to change that.

Meanwhile, her best friend, Laila, has a secret of her own: she can restore Addie’s memories . . . once she learns how. But there are powerful people who don’t want to see this happen. Desperate, Laila tries to manipulate Connor, a brooding bad boy from school—but he seems to be the only boy in the Compound immune to her charms. And the only one who can help her.

As Addie and Laila frantically attempt to retrieve the lost memories, Addie must piece together a world she thought she knew before she loses the love she nearly forgot . . . and a future that could change everything.

And Kasie West does it again.  It's now guaranteed that I will purchase a copy of every book she writes, even if I've already read a review copy.  It's my desire and my duty to support and promote such awesome authors.  West just jam-packs her novels with imaginative storylines and humor and swoons and just everything that makes a book fun.

I loved diving into the world of the Compound, into the seedy underbelly of it, as it were.  We get to experience more of their tech, their hierarchy, and what crossing them leads to.  We also get to see more of life outside of the Compound and just how hard it is to keep it a secret from your average human.  So, in essence, this sequel built upon everything I already loved in Pivot Point.

This time around, we don't get to experience two different paths Addie's life could take by way of the Search.  Oh, she still uses her power -- when she remembers it! -- but it's in small doses as compared to what we saw in the first book. And her power has changed...it's evolved into something more, which was quite interesting to witness as Addie practiced it.

In this book, Addie is spending her winter break with her father in the Norm world, so to fill in the gaps with what's happening back at the Compound, we've got Laila's point-of-view.  I wasn't sure how this would sit with me, considering her betrayal in the last book.  Yes, I know she was coerced into it, but it still felt like betrayal, and I'm not the only one having a hard time coming back from that.  Addie hasn't voiced her lack of trust in her best friend, but it's easy to see in what she doesn't say.

The Addie-Trevor thing is still there, even if neither understands why they feel such a connection since they can't remember how it was forged in the first place.  Even if Trevor is starting to become suspicious of Addie, after witnessing a couple superhuman feats of speed.  It's still just as sweet and adorable as it was in the first book, though.  But now that we have Laila's perspective, we have another ship to cling to.  Where Addie and Trevor are almost saccharine sweet, Laila and Connor are like Sour Patch Kids:  first they're sour, then they're sweet.  I loved how their relationship progressed, what they were willing to do for each other, what they learned about and from each other, how they made it work.  I don't know if I'd call it a slow-burning kind of romance because I felt the intensity of their feelings almost immediately, and it wasn't entirely a hate-to-love type of romance either because of that.  It was just perfect for the characters that they were.  So, if you were afraid after the ending in Pivot Point that the sequel would be lacking in swoons, fret not.  Kasie West wouldn't do us that way.  =)

Also, lots of stuff happens.  Like, stuff that even *I* didn't see coming, which is quite unusual indeed.  And it all wraps up nicely.  I'm a super-huge fan of duologies these days.  Like, over-the-moon happy with this trend.  Less waiting.  More story but with less filler.  Yep.  Let's keep this duet-thing going, okay?  That said, I'd still be okay with a third book in this series because I still have a ton of unanswered questions about Addie and this world.

If you liked Pivot Point, you're going to like Split Second, no doubt about it.  If you haven't started this series yet, I highly recommend it.  It's just fun.  Good, good fun.  It's got superpowers, football, swoons, and -- maybe not best of all, but I still highly treasure this fact -- it's set in Dallas where yours truly is from!

GIF it to me straight:

Yeah, I'm like crazy-person happy!  Such a fun series!

About the author:

I write YA. I eat Junior Mints. Sometimes I go crazy and do both at the same time. My novels, published through Harper Teen are: PIVOT POINT, its sequel SPLIT SECOND (Feb 2014), and THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US (a contemporary novel). I also have two more contemporaries, ON THE FENCE coming out July 1, 2014, and THE FILL-IN BOYFRIEND coming out the summer of 2015. My agent is the talented and funny Michelle Wolfson.

Find Kasie:

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