The Gifting

The Gifting Series Volume 1

By: K.E. Ganshert

Narrated by: Heather Masters

Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's Summary

If science is right, then I am crazy. And crazy is dangerous.

In a world where nothing supernatural exists, Tess Eckhart is positive she's going crazy. After her complete freak-out at a high school party, her family is too. So much that they pack their bags and move across the country, next to a nationally-renowned facility for the mentally ill.

Tess is determined to fit in at her new school, despite the whispers and stares. But when it comes to Luka Williams, a reluctantly popular boy in her class, she's unused to a stare that intense. Then the headaches start, and the seemingly prophetic dreams that haunt her at night. As Tess tries harder to hide them, she becomes increasingly convinced that Luka knows something - that he might somehow be responsible.

But what if she's wrong? What if Luka Williams is the only thing separating her from a madness too terrifying to fathom?

©2015 K.E. Ganshert (P)2016 K.E. Ganshert

Im hooked!

I'm not a 17 year old girl. STILL LOVED IT!
Can't wait for the next book to come out.

I drive truck and as soon as I started it, I realized I was going to finish it ASAP! The description of how the world had changed (in the story) was what drew me in..... Heather, the narrator, kept me intrigued.

Her smooth, effortless delivery; her rhythm and phrasing; the slight changes in vocal pitch and tone per character made this an easy listen. It's as if Heather was telling me a story as I drove, NOT simply reading me a book.

The story, with characters more than 20 years my junior, drew me in quickly, taking me back to some of the feelings, emotions, and memories of high school. However, the plot and direction kept me intrigued as I kept asking myself how I would feel, react, or handle the world in the same situation as in the story.

All in all, great book, FANTASTIC narration, and a listener bummed that the next story isn't available yet!

I'm dying to know more about Tess and Luka!

Rekindled a love for reading

I cannot say enough about The Gifting. I've read all three books in the trilogy and I'm wanting more. The books brought on so many emotions for me and rekindled my love of a good story to just fall into. Thank you Mrs. Ganshert and please keep the stories coming, preferably about Tess and Luka!

More intriguing than the Harry Potter series!

I was in awe from the beginning. This was one of the best books that I have ever listened to or read. I put this up there with The Hunger games and Harry Potter as far as story goes. I was intrigued also that the author was not afraid to voice her beliefs of God and not attribute everything to "magic". so many authors are ashamed to create a world where God exists.

I read a review where the reviewer ranted about Katie including God's existance in the world she made in the Gifting and how too many of her Characters had Christian based conservative beliefs. Saying she was "shoving" her beliefs on others... Nobody made you read that book. How many books are there that blatantly deny the existence of God. I say Katie is amazing and an amazing author. that she is brave enough to not care what others may say or think is comendable.

The gifting was a book that I could not stop listening to. I listened to The Gifting and then it's sequel The Awakening every waking moment until I finished them. I couldn't help myself. Katie's masterpiece and Heather Master's voice make this whole series addictive.

My only regret is that the 3rd book The Gathering is not available in audible yet...

When Katie when! How long will you keep us waiting?

Better than I expected

I didn't expect much from this book but thought I'd give it a try. It didn't take long for me to get sucked in. It was incredibly frustrating in the best way. Every time I though, "great, now it's getting cheesy." things turned around and I ended up loving it.

Give this one a shot if you like YA dystopian-ish stories. It's clean, no filthy words or inappropriateness so the younger crowd will enjoy it, but also mature enough that 30 year old moms will enjoy it too ;)

Great story! but speed up the narration 1.25X !!!

This was an interesting story with a unique twist.. In many futuristic dystopian stories, they depict a society that has become very creepy due to the take over of fundamentalist religion. Don't get me wrong, I like those stories (i.e. Handmaid's Tale). But this one depicts the opposite... a future where religion has become completely extinct. People don't believe in anything supernatural. And just for good measure, they throw in that the the second amendment has been repealed "When we repealed the 2nd amendment, we didn't get rid of guns, we just ensured that only the bad guys would have them." (at this point I did get a little worried that this book was NRA propaganda!) And the main twist is that, not only is abortion legal, but women are required to get screened during their pregnancy and are required to terminate, or get "cured," if the fetus is found to have any abnormality. In fact, mental illness is basically a crime and the state will capture you and institutionalize anyone who needs meds. So this was an interesting twist. I myself am not religious, am pro choice and anti-guns. but it was refreshing and interesting to see a depiction of what the world might look like if these beliefs were made more extreme.

Most importantly.... I SOLVED THE NARRATION PROBLEM BY SPEEDING UP THE RECORDING TO 1.25X!!. Many early reviews said that the narrator sounded odd. so much so that it was a distraction. Well, I felt the same way. And I noticed that the weirdest thing about it was that Tess's voice was really slowwwwwww. I tried speeding it up to 1.25x and guess what? Tess sounded totally normal. I think what happened is that some tricky sound engineer (for an unknown reason) went in and slowed down ONLY Tess's voice. Did they want the recording to last longer? I'm not sure why. but speeding the whole thing up to 1.25X made her voice sound normal. Unfortunately, the other voices sounded a little too fast... but not annoyingly so.

Anyway, it would be great if the producers would go back and release version where they hadn't speeded up the narrator's voice.

But that said, the story was cool and interesting and I am going on to listen to the next book.

Speed it up

I had to increase the speed by 1.30. WOW! Super slow narration, but she has a lovely voice. I hate that the main character is supposed to be a black belt yet is portrayed as incredibly weak mentally and emotionally. Then, when she tries to fight off a couple of big men, she is unable to do so with kicking and screaming. Really? Her constant insecurities and back and forth belief that she may be crazy are unbelievable. I kept on reading because of the spiritual aspect and of the dreams. I hope this series gets better.

MUSHY

I found the book, The Gifting, very mushy and too much like Twilight. She kept saying how much she loved, him how cute he was, it was a bit much.

weird christian undertones

Where does The Gifting rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

this book probably ranks somewhere in the middle

Any additional comments?

The thing that strikes me most about this book is all the religious stuff. as an atheist, i love that society has discarded religion - which apparently makes me one of the bad guys.then there's the whole malarky about neonatal screening and forced terminations for women if there is something wrong with the foetus. this book SMACKS of anti abortion dogma, which for a book clearly aimed at teens is quite alarming! the characters are quite thing and stereotyped, shy girl with low self esteem meets a boy who cant possibly like her because she's so plain, yadda yadda yadda. its a tale told a billion times.however if i set the religious quackery aside the book is good for a background listen while doing other things. I'm going to give the second book a shot, but i'm not pinning my hopes on it. I will stop listening and return it if it continues on with nothing happening.

Atheists v Christians plus plug for 2nd amendment

This book was terrible. First, the "romance" categorization is loose. It really should be in Christian fiction. The whole premise is that the nation has turned away from god. It's an atheist v. believer book. The society, including the parents, of course, rely on science while the kids, of course, have experiences with demons, angels, and come to believe in the spiritual. **Small spoiler** Not only does society not believe in god, they apparently lock up people who believe in demons and angels in "high security" mental facilities.

So this girl has dreams which are prophetic (this is not a spoiler), but even though there is real life proof that the events in her dreams come true, she refuses to believe. Re. Fu. Ses. So there's 7/8 of a book of her hemming and hawing about these blasted dreams and the whole book really swings on whether she believes these dreams are true or whether she's a crazy person. For real.

***THIS IS A SPOILER***: This girl and her ... guy friend (a couple out of the blue kisses at the end do not a romance make.) steal his Dad's ID and car and her Dad's iPad, drive from CA to OR, and break into the nation's highest security mental health facility to find her grandmother. They do so almost without incident even though the whole book has talked about how high security this place is. Seriously. Then ... the grandmother tells them ... basically nothing. And they get out of the place scott free. It's insane, pardon the pun.

OK, so, I really didn't like this book. And clearly I won't continue this series. If you're a Christians Should Rule The World!! kind of person, you might like it. Oh, and there's a plug in there for the second amendment, which the country abolished in this book's reality. So, there's that ....

The book captured my attention from the start

Overall Assessment:
This book really interested me because of the spin it takes on religion. Ganshert created a world that had completely eradicated religion and the supernatural and turned to only science and logic instead. With this, the government was able to begin mandated abortions (or ‘curing’ the pregnant women of ‘defective’ fetuses, as told by the government), take away all guns held by private citizens, and put any person suffering from mental illness into institutions-involuntarily.

What I liked:
– The narration was well done. Heather Masters has a great voice for someone as tortured as Tess, she has an almost 'haunting' quality in her voice.
– I loved to see an extreme version of the modern political and ethical dilemmas we face in our own society hashed out in this book.
– Tess was likable to me, her internal struggle of ‘am I crazy?’ was believable and genuine. I didn’t know if I could trust Luka either after some of the stuff she saw in her dreams/visions.
– The light on the treatment of patients struggling with mental illnesses. I’m a MH advocate, so I appreciated the scenes in two different institutions.
– To go with the above point, normally whiny and insecure heroines annoy me. However, Tess was being told her whole life that she was insane, which planted a substantial amount of self doubt into her. Her insecurity was realistic and expected, not done to make a doe-eyed little damsel in distress. Plus, she’s a black belt- so she’s pretty Bad A--. I’m interested to see how she transforms in the next couple of books once she becomes more confident!
– I really liked some of the supporting characters and am excited to see if they have much of a role in the second book.

What I didn’t:
– The only real critique I have here is that it got a little slow in the middle, but it picked back up after a few chapters.

Would I recommend this book to family and/or friends?
Yes, and I will be continuing the series

To see this review and others like it please visit my blog linked on my profile

Maybe suitable for teenage girls but I found this silly

I found this very shallow and a silly plot.
I think it would probably suit teenage girls and I have to congratulate the author that I think she has the angst of teenagers about right.
An incomplete story - designed to make you listen to the next in the series to find out what happens - I won’t be doing that!!