Significance by Shelly Crane, a book review
The idea of soul mates has been covered by numerous authors with varying levels of success. Just look at the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer – she got a movie deal out of it, and the soul mate idea (Jacob and the wolf pack’s imprinting) was secondary to the main storyline! Significance, a paranormal teen romance by Shelly Crane, is no Twilight, though. The only similarity between this novel and those by Meyer, besides the overt use of the concept of imprinting, is well, nothing. The premise behind Significance is that only a special group, the Virtuoso, can imprint and find their soul mates within their own clans. That is until Maggie Masters saves Caleb Jacobson’s life. Published by Shelly Crane, ISBN: 978-1463695408 (electronic), Significance is the first novel in the series of the same name.
I thought that putting some distance between my first reading and a review of Crane’s novel would help me to have a more positive outlook on it, but it didn’t. The supernatural soul mate premise alone couldn’t carry the book and make me want to read the other two in the trilogy.
The characters are shallow and underdeveloped, the plot mediocre, the conflict long-winded. What irritated me the most is that after the climax had been reached and the conflict resolved one would assume that the loose ends would be tied up in a tidy, succinct, and reasonable manner. Not so with Significance; the author actually seemed to start another novel in the last four chapters of the book by continuing the story after the resolution. It wouldn’t have bothered me so much had she included one little page titled Epilogue; but she didn’t, and the continuation of a story that is clearly finished is just plain annoying.
The reason I read this novel at all was because it sounded so much like the one I am writing that I didn’t want to unintentionally be snaking ideas from another author. Fortunately, that won’t be happening since my novels will have been edited for simple grammar mistakes (unlike Crane’s misuse of ‘he and I’, or every single character starting his/her dialogue with ‘Okay…’), my plot twists aren’t as obvious or trite, and I will end my novel leaving my readers wanting more, but not by starting a whole new storyline at the end.
So, should you spend the $.99 to purchase this book on an ereader? No, it’s a ‘Lend Me;’ just become my friend and I loan it to you.