Review: The Named

The Named by Marianne Curley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars




The first half of this book was just like all the other YA paranormals that I’ve grown so tired of - teenagers in class, passing notes, grumpy teachers, girl & boy working together, one with a crush on the other. Depressing home lives, parent and sibling issues, blah blah. Not a lot actually happens at first, but I could see where it was going and was quickly falling into eye-rolling mode, fighting boredom and frustration. How many times have I seen these clichés play out by now?

When I picked this up, I really thought it would be more about time travel adventures. Although the Named are guardians of the timeline, this story is more about the guardians in the present than what they do when they travel to the past. The teenagers are in training (very vaguely described aside from repeated mention of parent and sibling problems caused by the two spending time together), and the focus is not enough on their lives as guardians, at least at first. Irritated at being sucked into another one of these sorts of books, I forced myself onward, prepared to skim if necessary to finish this thing.

Then something changed. I’m not sure exactly when I stopped having to force myself to read. Probably about the time high school dropped out of it and we actually got past the training and into the missions (yes, this does happen!). Then there were a couple small events that challenged my sense of knowing exactly where it was going, and then stuff started happening and I got interested and then - then the end. Just as it started to get up to speed, it ended, and now I’m going to have to read the next one. I sincerely hope I don’t have to wait through another half book of the daily lives of teenagers before things get interesting again. Please no more high school. If we can stick to the business of the Named, I’ll be happy.



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