After reading the synopsis I was super excited when my wish was granted.

It starts off super slow (I understand it's about super humans laying low but) it just felt to slow for me.

The romance is instant with not much substance. It just wasn't for me.

Three Stars.

To start with, I was super thrilled to have my wish granted on Netgalley! It was a wonderful feeling because I really wanted to read this book.

The plot revolves around Julia Jaynes, daughter of a multi-billionaire named Novak. She has superhuman abilities ingrained into her genes, thanks to her being a descendant of an ancient tribe named the Puras. She mingles and spends most of her time with this group of boys who nickname themselves as "The Lost Kids". They are all a bunch of teens who each have unique abilities embedded into each of them. All was fine until they go down to the beach with Julia's sister, Olivia where they almost expose themselves in public, something Novak strives to avoid.

This, being Julia's fault is the reason why she is sent away from Barton Springs to Austin to distance herself from the others and learn to discipline herself. The aforementioned occurrence at the beach involved a normal human, John Ford with whom Julia connected instantly by eye contact (Bleh). Coincidentally, John goes to Austin High and is also in Julia's English class.

One major point that made rate the book three stars was the romance between John and Julia. They keep making eye contact and Julia can read John's mind, blah blah. Okay. But where were the conversations? That slowly built up chemistry that explodes after reaching the breaking limit? These were sadly absent. Since more than half of the book revolves around John, Julia and their meaningless, unfathomable obsession with each other, this gets a little frustrating. I mean, Angus (Julia's "crush" and best friend) has more chemistry with Julia than John.

Putting aside the lack of chemistry, another thought kept popping into my head as I read the book. I couldn't help but notice the parallels between the book and Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I swear I'm not doing these Twilight references on purpose but if you write the book from the Vampires' point of view, that is, the "keeping their identity a secret", "having a doctor among them" and "leaving the town when things start getting suspicious" portions, both the books would sound interchangeable but for the fact that Select is about humans with creepy, superpower genes. Other than these two points, I absolutely loved the book. I must say that the last few pages, with its unexpected twists and turns, completely changed my opinion about the book. I went "Maybe this book isn't that bad after all". And that last line left me hanging over the edge.

Overall, I loved the book and can't wait for the next book! Great job!
*Received ARC via Charlesbridge Teen and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

Good story but pace is slow

The Select blurb promised I would find a world where there are a select few of evolved humans living amongst the rest of humanity. The book delivered in describing these superior humans co-existing with the normal humans but the characters just fell flat to me.

Julia Jaynes comes from an ancient highly evolved race of human beings. Julia, her family, and a small group of others live amongst ordinary normal humans. They live almost like a cult and stick together keeping their talents hidden from the humans while living in plain view. The teen humans know Julia and her group are a little different; not only do they all have strong resemblance to each other, but they are intelligent, private schooled, athletic, and rich. One day while out in public, Julia accidently exposes a little too much of her abilities. As punishment, her father wants to make her feel inferior to the rest of the group and sends her to public school with strict orders to blend in and appear normal. In public school, Julia realizes she can read the mind of a boy named John she is crushing on. Before they both realize it, they are developing feelings for each other. Julia must decide if John is worth the risk of permanent banishment.

I really wanted to absolutely love this story. Not only did I love what the description presented but also I really was digging the cover. I don’t know what it is about YA book covers but I am a moth drawn to the light. The plot of this book sounded great because it was about these highly evolved humans living amongst us normal homo sapiens. These characters weren’t going to be aliens or vampires or any of the traditional YA paranormal creatures but something a little different. The problem for me was two things, the first being for such a long novel not much really occurred. The momentum of this book was extremely slow and it only picked up pace at about 80% in. In reading the description I thought this story’s primary focus was going to be on what makes Julia’s abilities so special within her group and how she uses these abilities whether selfishly for her own gain or for the greater good. Instead, the story touches on her abilities but didn’t delve into them as much as I was expecting. The primary focus was instead on her growing fasciation with her classmate John and the clock running out until the school year ends when she and her group have to move on.

The second issue for me is the characters just fell completely flat. There didn’t seem to be any substance between the characters. The dialog between the characters was boring and the romance between Julia and John felt stiff. It was immediate love between them but I didn’t feel the sparks. The relationship with her father was just strange. At times the story made it sound at one point they may have been close but the relationship at some point grew cold. Julia rarely called him dad or father and kept referring to him by his first name. Besides Julia’s father being the busy leader of the group there wasn’t any explanation why she felt the relationship frigid enough to not refer to him as Dad. To close, the nail in the coffin for me was this long slowly paced book ended in the dreaded cliffhanger! I have to know what happens so I will for sure be reading the next book!

The romance is sweet and the violence and language is minimal. I’d recommend for readers age 14 and over.

This was a fun book to read- while at first it seemed confusing because it wasn't clear that their was a whole community who had special abilities and how they differed from the rest of the world, once you figure that out the book sucks you in and doesn't let go until the last page! There was so much in this book- suspense, romance, comedy, sci-fi. I loved every second of it, and the ending leaves you wanting more- cannot wait to continue to read this series!!

This novel was definitely different than most I’ve become accustomed to in the YA genre because it was more of a melting between Sci Fi and YA which I found intriguing and a nice change of pace.

This is supposed to be the first in a new series and Marit Weisenberg has a unique insight into the human condition that comes through her characters, their psychological development which evolves through the choices they make, and how they deal with life in general.

The only downside that I could see is the romance part between the two main characters. I can seriously see that being an either love it or hate it part of the book’s storyline because it’s classic YA. Considering what a different type of plot overall the author went for it would’ve been nice to see more depth and complexity in this area. I also wish she had tightened up the dialogue some, at times she made the characters sound older through her word choices than they were purported to be.

She has a way of creating characters you will either invest in or hate.

There are some interesting surprises and the conclusion will make you want to read the sequel when it hits. There just seemed to be a little bit of everything in this book which made it compelling enough to read, worthy of my time and curious to see where she’ll go in the second.

This is the first in the Select series and I was glad the publisher was able to fix the formatting of the ebook version.
Here is my take on the book: the beginning was a bit clustered as in I felt like there were information about the characters and story that I should have known prior to reading the book. It just felt like I was missing something. As if the first chapter was a continuation of a previous book. Perhaps if the author had included a prologue leading into the characters and the situations then it would have been more fluid.
However, once I got past the confusing beginning the story picked up quickly. I was immediately drawn into the lives of the characters and the story. Julia, the main heroine definitely has her quirks but she is also vulnerable yet strong, sarcastic yet sensitive, and unwilling to blossom into something more powerful than the rest of her friends. John, the main hero has a certain sweetness to him that Julia doesn't want to accept or see. I really liked John because he seemed very genuine and sure of himself but when it came to Julia he was a bundle of nerves. There was an innocent quality to him that was probably what made John and Julia a great pair as they were both a bit insecure in a world where they were considered outcasts.
There's also a bit of a mystery going on throughout the story and you wonder what is exactly going on with these teens and the powers that they have. The cliffhanger isn't shocking but it definitely leads into another book in the series.
I really did enjoy the story and most of the characters but it would have been nice if the author had described more of how the characters developed their powers. And at first I was confused by the time frame of the story. It seemed like it would be a futuristic, dystopian type of world but it turned out the story took place in our current time which could also have been better explained in detail.
Overall, Select is a good book to read about teenagers developing first loves, navigating through the tedious threads of teenhood, and discovering "superhuman" powers in a world that's like our own but not quite.

Select was a wish come true for me , not only because my wish for an advanced copy was granted on NetGalley , but also because I was growing tired of shallow YA novels and I needed something to renew my faith in this genre. Select is exactly was I was looking for: the perfect combination between sci-fi and YA literature. What makes this novel really outstanding is that even if you removed the sci-fi part, it would still be a very interesting book to read on real life situations which many young adults can relate to.


We are all special in one way or another, Julia Jaynes is special in many ways. However, the things that make her an appealing character are not her unusual abilities but her human flaws. She longs for being part of a loving family instead of an isolated member of an apparently perfect one.She longs for love and for friendship. John Ford is her wish come true, a strong male character who loves her the way she truly is. With John she learns that there is a world of possibilities away from her life in a golden cage. They both feel strongly attracted to each other but it is not insta-love but something deeper that has to do with human evolution .

This novel is mainly about the choices we all have to make: accepting who we really are ,who we want to be with, deciding how far we are willing to go in order to survive and coming to terms with the idea that we just cannot have it all and that we may have to let go of some people on the way .

Marit Wiesenberg has written a gripping novel that will attract many readers. I just cannot wait for more . I strongly recommend this books to all fans of YA novels, you won't regret reading it!

Thanks to NetGalley for this amazing book!

So once I got into this book it was like I couldn’t stop reading. Every time there was a break in my day I would pull out my phone so I could continue the story. Not only was this book interesting, it also had an interesting romance that was realistic. I will say that the beginning of this book is a little bit slow but once you get passed the 50-page mark it really picks up. Most of this review will be spoiler free but the last paragraph will have spoilers (but I will make it obvious).

So the main family group in this book makes the main character's family seem cultish. Especially her father but I won’t say too much about him because I liked reading about him and forming my own opinions about him. I will say that he is a major ass hat and I would defiantly do what the main character does in the end. Her father is kind of a creep and I was expecting something to happen (which it thankfully didn’t). There was also a lot of secrets going around which made the entire cult theory I had more plausible.

I really liked reading about the main character, though. To me, she was someone that I could relate to and I understood the things she was doing and why she was doing them. The only thing I couldn’t get is how she continuously forgave her father and stepmother. I get that that is all she’s known but it has to get old sometime right? I understood why she kept most of the secrets that she did and I really liked that she didn’t use any of her “abilities” in a negative light. But to be honest, I would have understood that as well. I will mention here that there is a love interest and a little itty bitty love triangle. The triangle is put down pretty quickly and I personally loved the main love interest. He was great and he wasn’t completely unrealistic like some love interests in YA books.

I will defiantly recommend this to my friends once this book hits the shelves and they can buy it. I think this book would be perfect for anyone that loves fantasy and young adult! This book has very little adult content and so almost anyone who reads YA would be fine reading this (in my opinion)!

Spoilers in the next two paragraphs:

Oh, my gosh the ending. I am so happy that they ended up together but when he had the vision I was so ready to keep reading but obviously, I couldn’t because that was the end of the book. I liked the fact that the book naturally closes but with the cliffhanger, there is room for the story to naturally continue. I love books that do this because it doesn't eat away at me if I never finish the book series. This is becoming a series and because I read this book so far before the rest of the series comes out, I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it. But that's all right because this book was amazing on its own and I’m content with the ending I got just from this book.

I was also really happy that the main character got away from her toxic father and was able to live however she wanted. I was also really surprised to find that they had left her money and the rest of the property that the “group” had owned. I would have thought they would leave her with nothing after she made the decisions that she did.

Select is a paranormal romance about Julia, a girl who’s banished to public high school for nearly blowing her family’s cover, and John, a broken tennis prodigy whose soul calls to hers.

I absolutely adored this book. The romance itself was sweet and yet still believable. And despite an immediate connection, there was no instalove. The progression felt natural and right. Adding in the supernatural complications only made this harder to put down.

I also welcomed the complexity of many of the supporting characters. Angus, Liv, Novak, and even John’s brother, all surprised me to one degree or another. I’d have them figured out and then they’d do something unexpected, but still in character. I think the author did a great job giving them unique voices.

Still, this was light enough of a read to be enjoyable without having to work for it.

So overall, I loved this book. I’d highly recommend this to fans of YA and paranormal romance. Young love, a bit of magic (sort of), and plenty of drama make this quite a read.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley.

Twilight like(no vampires, just super humans)-plot was interesting and original, The book had me guessing what would happen next(not what I thought would happen). I did feel that there was a insta-love relationship with John and Julia, so if you aren't into that kind of thing, then I would pass on this book.

I honestly was not expecting for my wish to be granted to read this book. Still I had to requested because it sounded amazing and it was something that didn't sound like anything I've read before.

And it was fantastic, when my wish was granted I was super excited and I dived right into it! The plot was fantastic, the whole idea of being different in a group of differents was a refreshing idea and it was done right. There was a chance for this story to be completely wrong and go south, but Weisenberg did it right.

I love every single part of the story, the twists and turns and I hated a lot of characters, but Novak was the worst of them all, I seriously hated that guy from the moment he was introduced. I honestly don't know how the story is going to continue because it has the worst cliffhanger. When I first read the last line I honestly thought I was missing a few pages or something, but no. There was no more lines and I honestly died a little. I need to know what happens next!!!

Love the story, love the book, cannot wait for book two, because there has to be a book number two.

Select was a super interesting, fast paced read. Essentially, it had a lot of the same elements of Twilight (no vampires, just super evolved humans) but the twist was fascinating and well done-- Wiesenberg is a skilled writer, she kept me wanting to know more about these evolved people until the very end.
Wiesenberg also did an awesome job of withholding and giving information throughout her plot, causing so much tension and suspense and mystery of what would happen, and then moving in a direction I didn't expect! (Well done!)
She did such a great job of building up to the relationship between John and Julia, while leaving us with an unexpected twist at the end. No spoilers, but it is so much more than a relationship!
In general, I'm not a fan of tons of curse words in YA. In Select, I thought it was unnecessary. It made the characters sound older, less intelligent/superior, and less in control (than they were supposed to be).

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this book, it has an original plot and will keep readers absorbed with thrilling revelations and developments. I can't wait for the next book in the series or more books by this author.

I finished this really quick! Loved the characters and the story!