VeganCleopatra

If I had seen the tagline "Come for the apocalypse. Stay for cupcakes. Die for love." I probably would have skipped this one altogether. Cupcakes? Love? Is this sci-fucking-fi or what?

First of all, the writing style was poor. The writing was unclear, especially in the perilous situations, such as the very beginning and the fight scenes. The writing overall never made me believe anything that was going on was of genuine concern. Did I ever think the characters were in peril? No. The writing was just not memorable, much like the main character (more on that later).

Another element of the writing were the paragraphs of what-are-characters-doing-at-this-exact-minute-dumps. It was a different take on the infodump. I think I like this even less.

Madeleine stayed where she was, just turning so she could watch them. Fisher was self-contained, withholding judgment, while Gavin was clearly more optimistic, reassuring Emily. Nash's shoulders were slumped, and Pan was keeping a concerned eye on him. He reached up and put a hand on the taller boy's shoulder, and Nash seemed to gain strength from the gesture, straightening, but then moved away. Noi came back inside, face pensive,...

Now on to the main character, Madeleine. She was not memorable nor was she special. Yes she was the most "blue" of any of the characters but aside from this she was forgettable. Even the fact that she has more abilities seems moot.

Madeleine did not start off well with me when after the disaster, which she had no idea the cause of, she lied to her mother about how she was fine and somewhere altogether different. WHY? There seems to be absolutely no purpose to this aside from being able to keep parents out of the story so the kids can save the world. This just seemed completely freaking unbelievable.

As for the storyline, why do the damn characters just assume it was aliens? It never seems even possible to their little minds that it could be anything else. The storyline was just poorly done and unbelievable overall. Such as the alien's weaponry against the planet endows humans with the special powers that allow humans to defeat said aliens. How convenient. Aliens able to come to this planet, cause this disaster etc. are somehow still really stupid and can easily be outsmarted by teenagers. Right. Also, it had taken days for these individuals to turn into blues/greens and establish whether they were going to die or survive, YET many of them, including our lovely MC, could already harness their powers with ease. WTF? And no, the teenagers never seemed competent enough to "save the world". And why, oh why, does no one seem very concerned about the world ending and their family and friends dying? Where was THAT concern?

And vampires? What?

Also, cell phones, electricity, the internet and the water supply apparently don't stop working. It was many many days and yet everyone's cell phones still work. Where are these cell phones with the magical batteries? It was just yet another absurdity to add to the rest of the novel.