Intertwined

By: Gena Showalter

Narrated by: Jessica Almasy

Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's Summary

Most 16-year-olds have friends. Aden Stone has four human souls living inside him: One can time travel. One can raise the dead. One can tell the future. And one can possess another human.

With no other family and a life spent in and out of institutions, Aden and the souls have become friends. But now they're causing him all kinds of trouble. Like, he'll blink and suddenly he's a younger Aden, reliving the past. One wrong move, and he'll change the future. Or he'll walk past a total stranger and know how and when she's going to die.

He's so over it. All he wants is peace. And then he meets a girl who quiets the voices. Well, as long as he's near her. Why? Mary Ann Gray is his total opposite. He's a loner; she has friends. He doesn't care what anyone thinks; she tries to make everyone happy. And while he attracts the paranormal, she repels it. For her sake, he should stay away. But it's too late....

Somehow, they share an inexplicable bond of friendship. A bond about to be tested by a werewolf shape-shifter who wants Mary Ann for his own, and a vampire princess Aden can't resist. Two romances, both forbidden. Still, the four will enter a dark underworld of intrigue and danger - but not everyone will come out alive....

©2009 Gena Showalter (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Intertwined

In the beginning I couldn't put the book down, mainly due to the characters- Each one so different but unique. But the pages stop turning fast as I fell upon the middle of the book. Everything just felt so long and drawn out. I had to really push to get through it. But eventually the plot picked up again.

The ending of this book is not complete. There's no plot resolution. Your just left hanging not knowing any answers. It's like they took one solid book and ripped it in half to make two.

The Questions?

YA or Adult---YA

Tearjerker --- No

Laugh worthy--Not really.

Action--- Yes there are a few fight scenes.

Gruesome--- Minor- there's some description that makes you cringe a bit.a

Love---- Yes but it's not presented as a deep everlasting love. (at least it was to me)

Worth the money to buy?
I'm a bit iffy... My advice is wait until the second book in the series comes out. ( If you can) Due to the fact there's no plot resolution in the first.

Fun, Complicated, Myth-loaded, yet no ending

First, let me start off by saying three things about the author: Gena Showalter is very talented and imaginative. She's a romance novelist. She LOVES writing about people who have voices in their heads. What you get from this is that her attempt to cash in on the current teen Twilight hype is about a boy with not one, but 4 voices in his head and a story so complicated yet so easy at the same time that you have to really pay attention to keep up with it.

I enjoyed the book despite every type of mythical creature under the sun showing up because why? the lead boy bumped into the lead girl at the cemetary. That's all it took. Despite the fact that they now hang, nothing like that ever happens again. Also, despite all these creatures coming to town to look for him, they only get so far as to coming to town. It's stated multiple times that things are looking for him, but it's like saying you're looking for a Starbucks coffee mug but going everywhere but Starbucks. There's waaaay too many things that happen easily... such as the vamp girl's ability to smooth EVERYTHING over, the couples have no trouble pairing up despite a few glares, and the biggest angst seems to be coming from the fact that the lead girl's BFF got pregant by the lead's BF. PS He's a demon. As if vampires, werewolves, zombies, goblins, fairies and witches aren't enough. Meanwhile the book actually sold us on the four souls living in Aden's head, which is what intrigued me despite all Showalter's other books being about the same thing (except this time instead of demons doing the talking the souls are human... we think). The narrator is okay, she's just SUPER hyper. I also found many instances where I wondered why they chose a female to read this instead of a male - the character's are pretty well divided into male and female so I figured that the tie-breaker would be that the lead is actually a guy. It's decent if you want something different to listen to.

A credit not very well spent.

I was disappointed with this book, but not because it was meant for teens and I'm not. The problem for me was too many unbelievable and implausible things in the 4 main character's behavior. Nobody gets angry and talks to their father the way the human female lead does in this novel. Much less walks out of the house saying she's going to go stay with someone else. Yeah right! That whole seen was so completely unbelievable I had to stop listening for a while. Then there's the male lead of the story who has all these powers, one of which, he nor we as the reader, is aware of because the author doesn't really write the incident into the story. We are just told about it by a vampire girl, (another lead character), after pretty much every supernatural creature in lore comes looking for the male lead as if he had gotten on a phone and called them. In the just plain dumb category, our hero seeks help from the previously mentioned human girl. Only the help turns out to be something he could have just looked up on the internet then investigated for himself. He's certainly written smartly enough to have done this on his own. I guess when you're writing for teens the story and plot simply don't have to make as much sense as it would if you were writing for an adult.

The pace of the book opens does well and promises some good action. Then it fizzles in the middle only to get good at the end, but the author screws us again with the ending. The book is continued and the story doesn't have a satisfying ending in this, the first novel. The reader is just left hanging with unresolved plot points. I really do think Gena Showalter is a talented writer, but I wouldn't give this book a shot unless you really like the genre AND the second book is available so that you can buy them together. Just listening to the first book will leave you very unsatisfied with how you spent your credit.

Also, is the reader doing helium? Her voice sounds very childish

Waste of a Credit

What disappointed you about Intertwined?

Everything. It overdid everything.

Would you ever listen to anything by Gena Showalter again?

Listen? Probably not. No. Read? I don't know... Very slight change of that happening.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Jessica Almasy?

I don't know. But she WAY overacted this. I appreciate the effort to have very distinct voices for all the characters, but the rhythm of her narration reading is awful. It was torture to listen to. I couldn't stand it. I'll never listen to anything read by this narrator again. Sorry.

What character would you cut from Intertwined?

Um I thought Riley and Victoria had almost no purpose in this book whatsoever. I think the author is trying to set stuff up for later book, but I hated their characters. I hated their insta-love. I hated basically everything about them. If this story had just been about Aden and his four companions in his head and Mary Ann, it MIGHT have been okay. Those parts were interesting - even genius at times. But everything else - the attempt to make this the everystory of paranormal fiction - trying to *reinvent* vampires, werewolves, witches, goblins, fairies, zombies, future-tellers, AND time-travelers, etc..... IT'S WAY TOO MUCH. And it didn't successfully deliver anything. Honestly, it was a huge disappointment.

Any additional comments?

Don't get to audiobook. Do yourself a favor and skip it.

Can't wait for another

The only reason I could not give this book 5 stars was because there was no resolution to the story. I hate being sucked in and wanting more and find out the author is not releasing the sequel for another year. I did however love Showalter's writing and idea for the story and believe it could be a great series once finished.

Enjoyable

I truly enjoyed this book. It has a "Twilight Sage" feel to it, but still enjoyable. The only thing I did not like about the book was the abrupt ending. The author provides much detail throughout the story and then it just ends.

The narrator was superb! I enjoy listening to her.

Gena Showalter is a fine author! I've listened to all her books that Audible has available.

AMAZING

This story is one of my all time favorites. Its very well writen and easy to read. You instantly fall in love with the characters. Your heart goes out to Aiden (main character). Things dont turn out the way you'd think especially at first. I loved this book and instantly looked for others writen by her. Ive read some of her other stuff and like this one best. Very much a YA book. A fun loving story of some down and out teen thats had a very hard life and finaly gets a chance to make things right. The narrater was awesome!! Her enthusiasm will leave you breathless. Totaly great package with the 2.

Pleasantly Surprised!

Pleasantly Surprised! I really enjoyed this book. It is exciting to hear a love story/drama from the perspective of the young man. Great book for teens and adults. I am always looking for books that are intense, yet not filled with profanity or sex. Thanks for a great read.

Teenage angst

I like Gena Showalter's adult books very much. This, however, has too much teenage angst for me. Everything causes angst - boyfriend, boy friends, girl friends, shapeshifters, Dad, voices in one's head, new school, bullies, memories being wiped clean -- the usual high school stuff.

The story is great, the narrator drove me nuts!

What did you love best about Intertwined?

I liked the characters, (there's a lot of them). The interaction of the various personalities and the new way of approaching the paranormal is interesting.

What did you like best about this story?

I liked the characters in Aden's head.

How could the performance have been better?

Absolutely! I think action is difficult to perform but she was hard to listen to because she over-emphasized. It was like listening to a 7 year old tell you about a fight scene in a movie.POW! BAM!

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

I hate this kind of question

Any additional comments?

It's a good novel and I bought the next book in the story to read. This is a book you should read, not listen to.