In spite of some classic troupe issues, I liked this book! West Point or prison is quite a choice, isn't it? So Scarlett does what she has to, and finds she has powers.  Lots of action, superpowers, decisions to be made, classic in all those aspects.

The downsides, Scarlett is a drug user, with an abusive father, the combination of which have caused her to have low self-esteem and bad morals. Now, can she pull out of that with some training and her powers? 

I appreciate the Sci-Fi aspects. That gained this book stars it might have lost otherwise. 

My copy came from Net Galley. My thoughts and opinions are my own. This review is left of my own free volition.

The point reminded me a lot of like X-Men/RWBY/shatter me series. Scarlett reminded me a lot of Yang from RWBY in that as much beatings she got the stronger she got, along with being able to create fireball energy. You had Dahlia who reminded me a lot of Emerald except Dahlia was a dream walker where as Emerald could create hallucinations and mess with your mind. Both are level 3 post-humans meaning they can do serious damage. Seamus, who is Scarlett‘s love interest and interesting because he is working within the corporation but not really because he feels that it’s their fault that his family is dead.A lot of PTSD here. Scarlett’s father is kind of a dick but I guess I could understand it all, I mean she has this gift she’s wasting, his son is dead and family is falling apart. There was a couple apocalyptic moments within the book that are just quite terrifying and Jagger, who is the master villain in the book I just feel is my only con, because I felt like that battle between him and Scarlett could have gone on a bit longer and a bit more interestingly. Otherwise I think this is a great read and a pretty good book and I am rather surprised if they didn’t get as much attention as it should have.

This story started off strong. We meet Scarlett as she's blowing off her own high school graduation, much to her mother's dismay. She is a rebellious, angry, angsty teen who is struggling with her future plans. When she gets into trouble, her only option to avoid jail is to join the military program at West Point.

Of course this isn't just a regular program at West Point, Scarlett has special abilities that the military is interested in. Posthumans are in their own program where they are learning to control and focus their powers. As is standard for Scarlett, she isn't that interested in doing what she's told. I liked her rebelliousness and bending of the rules despite her angst ridden feelings.

I really enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book, where we learn all about Scarlett and her experience with other posthumans. My frustration with the ending is mostly that is feels so different from the rest of the story. We are quickly introduced to the enemy and there's a showdown of sorts. Very movie-esque in its hastiness.

If you're looking for an interesting science fiction story that feels a lot like X-Men or the show Heroes, I think you would enjoy this book a lot. It definitely leans more towards Young Adult genre, but not in a bad way.

Scarlett Winters is a screw up. A troublemaker. After blowing off her high school graduation and, unknowingly, the party her parents had planned for her she finds herself backed into a bad choice. Go to West Point, something she’s never wanted, or be blamed for a terrorist attack and be sent to jail. West Point isn’t what Scarlett expects though as she’s thrown in with other misfits. Other misfits with superhuman powers and backgrounds a lot like her own. Threats from the Point’s troubled past leave Scarlett with a choice, stay the same as she’s always been or buckle down and learn to control her ability to manipulate energy and help save the Point and her classmates.

I’m not entirely sure what to do with John Dixon’s The Point. Left to itself, the book is a bit of a mess that jumps between having really well done moments and leaving me wondering how it reaches certain points. This is largely a matter of character motivation feeling lacking or just strange. The Point itself feels like a good place to start.

The Point doesn’t entirely seems certain if it wants its military element to be a balancing force in Scarlett’s life or a force for negative over all. There’s a fair amount of talking up all the good being at the Point has done for Scarlett in helping her get a handle on herself and making her feel like part of something more than herself, at least in the second half of the book. But then the cadets of the Point were nearly all brought in as opposed to being incarcerated. All of them were forced to go through normal West Point initiation before inevitably losing their tempers and failing out. And they’re kept in line through threat of what amounts to literal torture in addition to hazing from older cadets. And we don’t really see much of Scarlett building towards feeling like being at the Point is a good thing. She spends time getting tormented by this one older Cadet and his flunkies, then her powers are finally triggered and suddenly she’s moved into a better room and being treated much better. She’s suddenly got friends and a degree of freedom if she sneaks out. It’s that combination that helps her start dealing with things at the Point, but not really the Point itself.

Nothing really progresses from there until the antagonists make a move. Then it’s go time, things are personal for Scarlett so she absolutely wants to figure out how to use her power to be allowed to fight these guys. And it feels disjointed here, because you have to wonder if Scarlett would have cared enough to get serious if it hadn’t been personal. But it’s like flipping a switch, that’s how the troublemaker who only just chose the Point over prison is brought in line. That’s how we get from Scarlett barely treading water to Scarlett digging in her heels and pushing herself further and further.

The characters are, by and large, static. Scarlett changes some, but it feels forced. It’s the same for the student that’s supposed to be mentoring her. The love interest starts off hating Scarlett for being given special treatment, but he’s so obviously the love interest that that hardly counts. But then, that’s about it. Her fellow cadets are at best sketches of characters.

I would have liked to see more of the antagonists throughout the book. Just, more of them building towards their plan and letting it feel as dangerous as it’s supposed to be. It makes it hard to care about most of what’s going on because the stakes feel non-existent. Like, in the very lead up to the final confrontation, we get told that the big bad is super powerful and amazing and the most dangerous man to have come out of the program prior to the Point being cooked up. Everyone is just super doomed. But the reader hasn’t really been shown how good this guy is, it was touched on at the beginning and then he just sort of disappears until the climax. There’s this big confrontation at the end. It’s huge and flashy, like summer blockbuster flashy, but the impact is lost because it’s just so out of place. It took me out of the book in a bad way with just how badly out of place and over done it felt. More than that, I found myself asking why I should care about the chaos that was happening.

So, conclusions here, The Point has some scenes that work really well but it has a number of issues with character work and pacing. I’m left feeling like this was originally meant to be the start of a series, but then Dixon changed his mind and just didn’t go back and account for that. I would have liked to have seen more done with the characters overall. I think I would have also liked to have seen more of Scarlett and her fellow cadets daily stuff rather than the romance sub plot. That said, I would read John Dixon again, which leaves The Point with a three out of five.

Not groundbreaking but a lot of fun regardless, this book is, as many others have undoubtedly noted, a sci-fi superhero story meets military thriller. The characters are what one would expect from that description, as is the plot. What stands out most is the way the author immerses you in the setting, and makes you feel like you are right there along with the MC, Scarlett, as she struggles to fit in and to achieve in the high-stakes environment of West Point. Well, a secret underground X-Men unit of West Point, anyway!

While the overall premise was good, I found myself struggling to finish it. Rather than DNF (which I hate to do) it took me about three months to finally finish it. Post-humans is a great concept but I felt that Scarlett was underdeveloped and some of the family tension could have been better fleshed out. As it stands, I won't review this for my blog.

"The Point" was a quick, mindless read I'd chosen to keep me busy during long wait times in doctor's offices. As it turns out, I shot myself in the foot, because I didn't want to stop reading when I was finally called back into an exam room!

The main character, Scarlett, and I did not see eye to eye on much throughout the first half of the book. It wasn't until she went out to that bar with some of her classmates that I actually started to care about what became of her life. Specifically her life with a certain someone I will not name here because, ya know, spoilers!
;)

The storyline was hard to follow, at times. Toward the beginning of the book, Scarlett crashes a party at an ex-friend's house. There was this whole backstory and other characters that seemed like they were going to be more involved in the overall story than they actually were. The reason for those characters existing did all come together in the end, but I still feel it was lacking a certain something.

All in all, "The Point" was a quick, enjoyable read, and I don't regret sticking it out until the end.

Meh, I wasn’t really impressed with this book. A military sci-fi thriller (per the description) with a hard lean to young adult, it was just a little flat for me. Scarlett is a rebellious thrill-seeking teenager that has a secret. After an incident, she is recruited into a secret unit at West Point for “post humans” aka people with superpowers. There is a lot of woe is me and people doing super power things and all of a sudden, BAM. Bad guy comes in and only Scarlett can save the day. It just wasn’t very believable. I know, I know, this is about young adults with superpowers, but the storyline just felt off and full of holes. I really wouldn’t recommend this one.

This book would make an awesome movie! A bratty military kid chooses enlistment to jail and learns that she and those like her could save the world. Sound familiar? Yes it does, but John Dixon puts his own spin on the story, turning it into an original and hopefully the first in a long series.

This is an exciting Sci-Fi adventure! An action packed story with a great main character. Scarlet is tough and smart and perfect as the hero.

This was a really entertaining page turner that kept me up late a couple nights; reading, that is. For the most part, it was thoroughly enjoyable. Most of the characters were well-developed and realistic. MOST of the time, I did not hate the major characters, which is always a nice plus.

The gist of the book is that there are groups of people that have special powers that resulted from a military accident. Those people are being trained by the army to become super-soldiers. Those super-soldiers are particularly being trained to stop their predecessors who went rogue for some reason. That latter element makes up the last 1/4 of the book and is not well explained. That is where the problems start, for me. There are a lot of unanswered questions. There are plot-lines that are introduced and not fleshed out. The book also ended very abruptly, for me. SOME of the characters are very poorly developed, which is unusual, because the writer does a really good job with most of them.

So the book is a little uneven. And the strangest thing of all is that the editing is REALLY uneven. Most of the book is pretty well edited. There are parts, however, where the pronouns are flipped and it makes absolutely no sense, as written. It happened several times. Not the kind of thing that spell-check would catch, but anyone reading it would notice, right off. It is easily sorted out by the reader, after going through it a couple times. But I am not sure how it would not have been picked up.

I thought the overall story was excellent and the writing top-notch. The plot was well constructed for about 2/3 of the book. The ending felt rushed to me, given how the rest of the book flowed. Given these issues, I would normally have given the book 3 stars. But I liked the premise and the rest of the book was so unusually well done that I felt it deserved an extra star.

This was a fun, fast read! I'm always a sucker for a story about gifted young people, and the special powers in this book were really interesting! While I couldn't get into some of the character relationships, overall, I had a lot of fun with this!

Scarlet was a really solid character. I really enjoyed seeing her grow and develop throughout the book. And the friends she made along the way were really fun too! I didn't feel terrible connected to her, but I did like her character as a whole.

My biggest complaint, however, was the love story that developed. I never really got into it and felt like it happened way too quickly. Granted, I'm pretty picky about love stories, so maybe I'm just overly critical about that.

The story itself was so interesting though! I loved the idea of a secret group of West Point-trained superheroes and super villains. And there were a few nice twists along the way that made for an entertaining read!

All in all, I liked this book. There were parts I wasn't too thrilled with, but overall, I'm really glad I gave this book a read!

Dixon has painted a fantastic portrait of a troubled teen coming into her gifts amidst the structured world of West Point.

This was a very interesting book, not the type of book that is usually my thing but this book was so well put together that despite that I found it a very good read.

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In The Point, you will end up meeting Scarlett Winter. She's a troubled teen in the beginning and doesn't really take to authority. Especially if it's her dad telling her what to do. Eventually things get a bit out of control and she ends up at West Point. Which is where her dad wanted to go to begin with. However, it's not THE West Point that everyone really knows about. Nope, she is basically with these cadets who have special powers, just like her.

Now this book kind of reminded me of a couple of TV shows and/or movies. For example, it's teenagers with special abilities going into this special program. No, they didn't volunteer for it either. So, while reading this book I kept thinking of like X-Men or even that show Heroes.

At first, the main character kind of annoyed me. I get that she was rebelling and everything but she was also a smidge annoying. I also feel like I could've used a bit more information on posthumans in general because I just really wanted to know more. For example, were the born with these powers? Did they magically get them overnight? What exactly are all the powers within the levels.? So many questions that could've been easily answered (I think).

Other than that, I did end up enjoying the book and I'm glad that I got the chance to read it. Real rating: 3.5 stars.

Interesting premise about super-powered humans, post humans, who are recruited for West Point in order to be come part of a secret section of the academy and ultimately the US military force. At first I wasn’t that thrilled with the dismissive way in which life at The Academy was depicted and it took me most of the story to come to terms with it as part of the plot. I eventually get involved in the characters who were recruited into The Point section of the Academy as they were very human and developed slowly throughout the story, especially the heroine, Scarlett. It read like a YA aimed at teens and at times seemed a little simplistic in vocabulary and plot but the final showdown was a bit of a surprise and helped to redeem the whole plot focus. Thanks to #netgalley for the chance to read the ARC of. #thepoint.

The Point trains young kids who have special abilities which they call posthumans. Think x-men or agents of shield. Scarlett Winter is a high school graduate that always finds herself in some sort of trouble. Only this time she gets an offer she can’t refuse either go to jail or attend the Point. The Point is a government agency that trains posthumans infusing their power. Scarlett will have to find a way to learn to harness and store her power in order to defeat the biggest threat that the world has encountered.

A fun science fiction read and it has some suspenseful moments. I like the story and there were some moments I was wow. I can see this as a movie or TV show. The villain has interesting powers that seems unstoppable. If you like reading about supernatural powers you will enjoy reading this book.

I loved this! A story about a school for special-talents that does not think they will all be teeneager! It was great fun from start to finish!!!!

A gripping, vivid account of what life is like for a reluctant newbie at West Point. Made all the more interesting by the fact that said newbie has supernatural powers.

Scarlett is coerced into enrolling at West Point rather than go to jail for an accidental crime. She has a super power that she's not entirely comfortable with and not completely sure how to use. The resulting action filled story is both attention grabbing and satisfying. She and other new recruits with powers are herded into separate classes/dormitories for their specialized learning and training on how to control and safely wield their various different powers. The action is fast and constant, there's not a dull moment; no long paragraphs covering page after age with self reflection and rehashing of events in retrospect. The characters are interesting and believable and you can't wait to turn the page and find out what's happening next!

My only negative comment would be the odd insertion at random moments of juvenile, overly sexy shenanigans by the two main people. Seamus is described as brooding, quiet, serious, contemplative. He and Scarlett become an item, which is fine, but at random moments he (as a telekinetic) remotely pokes her in the butt, performs sexual masturbation and oral sex on her at inopportune times, all while she keeps telling him to stop it. Those passages felt like they were added simply for titillation, and although this isn't exactly too old for teens, I was uncomfortable with the message that her saying No and him not listening to her sends.

The ending is satisfying and ties up all the loose ends, while still giving off a hint of a second novel. I hope so. I'd like to know more about this fascinating group of kids.

This story had some strong points: a good female lead, especially after she left the immature, teenage whining at the beginning of the book; unusual characters, also known "posthumans" with very strange powers; a secret spy organization located underground at West Point; and of course, villains, originally trained by the secret spy organization.

There were some cool, but less obvious, connections through out the story. One example is the senator and his long lost daughter: they could have played a much bigger role. Their appearance at the end of the book was surprising but it could have been a startling revelation.

Overall it was an enjoyable read, definitely in the young adult category.

Thanks to NetGalley and publishers for an advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review.