Hunting Lila

Hunting Lila

by Sarah Alderson

SYNOPSIS:

17-year-old Lila has two secrets she’s prepared to take to the grave. The first is that she can move things just by looking at them. The second is that she’s been in love with her brother’s best friend, Alex, since forever. Or thereabouts.After a mugging on the streets of South London goes horribly wrong and exposes her unique ability, Lila decides to run to the only people she can trust – her brother and Alex. They live in Southern California where they work for a secret organisation called The Unit, and Lila discovers that the two of them are hunting down the men who murdered her mother five years before. And that they’ve found them. Trying to uncover the truth of why her mother was killed, and the real remit of The Unit, Lila becomes a pawn in a dangerous game. Struggling to keep her secrets in a world where nothing and no one is quite as they seem, Lila quickly realises that she is not alone – there are others out there just like her – people with special powers -and her mother’s killer is one of them…

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Book #1 in Series

This book was so damn cute.

I know that the author’s intentions were never for me to find this story just ‘cute‘, but without taking in account all the paranormal activity and mystery, the book is more or less about this girl, Lila (one of the most innocent characters – as far back as I can remember reading about), trying to run from herself, from her past, in the same time running to the only people she can trust with her life: her brother and his awesome, good-looking, red-motorcycle-driver best friend (whom she is crushing really-really bad).
See? It sounds cute.

Back to the beginning, ‘cuz we’re running in circles here, there are 2 things you might want to know about Lila:
1. Her mother was mysteriously killed a few years before.
2. Her father decided to move to England and he took her there (almost against her will), breaking her little heart, because she had to leave behind her beloved brother and (surprise, surprise!) the ‘love of her life’ – Alex.

Now, if you’re asking me (which you’re probably not, but again you don’t really have a choice) I never understood why did she feel bad about trying to defend herself by threatening someone with a knife (don’t mind the fact that she wasn’t really holding it in her hands).. if someone tried to corner me on a dark street with any reason whatsoever and threaten me, I would have surely broken his (in this case their) useless neck (using or not using my hands to do so). Neither did I get the reason why she left London so quickly, but anyways, who I am to question it, right?

She goes back to US, and she has to find a way to make her brother let her stay. But that’s not the biggest of her problems, because very soon things are getting a bit out of control and all she can do is run, run, run and run so more, and then run into Alex who seems to keep protecting her every time she is in trouble.

There was something sweet about her obsession for Alex. In other situations I would’ve been annoyed by her obsessive attitude, but somehow in this case it worked perfectly, and I felt somehow a bit protective of her. Yes I still wanted to shake her from time to time, to make her put the priorities in order (like caring more about her brother, and just a bit less about Alex), but at times when there was too much tension in the air I found her worries about Alex kind of sweet.

Also there was this age difference between them so obvious, that made me wonder why would a guy like Alex like a girl like Lila. She was naive and childish (funny how she wanted people to think of her as an adult, but her actions showed all the contrary); Alex was more mature, his actions calculated, his life so different than hers. Maybe all those differences made them fall for each other, who knows, I am glad they did because this way they kept my attention, waiting to see who will make the first step.

I won’t say much about the action, because these days I stay away from spoilers, but I loved all of it. I didn’t know who to trust – who’s the good guy, who’s the bad one – even in the ending I was left wondering if there won’t be a twist in the next book, anyways it was nice to see Lila find her answers and some more interesting things about her life and the people she cared about, and I loved all the other ‘special’ people (the ones with powers, if you get what I mean).

One thing that I noticed and bugged me a bit was how everyone in this book seemed to look amazing, gorgeous, dazzlingly beautiful or magnificent. I don’t know in what world does Lila live, but in mine not everyone looks like movie stars.. just saying.

All in one, a great one-sitting-kind-of-story that makes you want more, more, more… oh yeah, and then some more 🙂

PS: Another lovely cover, but don’t be deceived by the girl with high heels and blue dress – Lila is not the dress-type, and the only time she wore heels she ended up walking barefoot.

PSS: If I am not remembering well his hair color, then I apologize for changing it in these beautiful pictures LOL

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2 responses to “Hunting Lila”

  1. Anonymous says:

    Your cute comment of the book reminds me of a time I told my 5 year old cousin that he was the pretties boy on earth and he just looked at me with complete utter horror like I just slapped him and said ‘I’m not pretty, boys are not pretty, boys are handsome’
    and I was like, Okay you’re handsome then and he still denied it, calling him cute or anything is the biggest insult to him lol

    I’m excited to read this one, the summary sounds good and I like the age difference you mentioned, in general I always like older guys. Meaning my teenage self likes real men, a man’s man. Sure I have all kinds of guy friends but their immaturity is a turn off. Not saying I’m about to go marry a 40 year old just that I like a well developed man of character XD I think that’s why I like reading adult contemporary too. Sometimes the YA… shallowness (I can’t find another word to use) makes me want to rip my hair out. Like you mentioned how everyone is gorgeous and fantastic in this book, well you will only find this in YA. I actually came across average looking people id adult contemporary, yes I know who would have thought!

    Just a really important question though, how in the world did you read this? I didn’t know it was a UK read first and I totally emailed the author and was like ‘yeah I want to read your book but i can’t seem to find it anywhere’ and she kindly informed it’s not out in the US and while this was a while back, I still can’t seem to find a way to get it.

    Anyways great review, I’m glad you liked this one!! and I totally love the pictures, I must read this ASAP for the lovely motorcycle riding Alex. My sister and I came across the conclusion that ANYONE who rides a motorcycle is instantly made sexy and I do mean those sweet BMW motorcycles not no Harley Davidson one XD

    -thank you&come again.

    • Ari says:

      Yeah, in most YA everyone’s gorgeous, I blame Snow White and Cinderella for making people believe that everyone should be good-looking in a book, LOL.

      I usually rate books judging by the amount of emotions it makes me feel, this one had such a sweet romance and enough action/mystery to enjoy it. There were some moments when I kept rolling my eyes at Lila (some characters did that too, so it wasn’t just me), but it somehow worked for me, it made me laugh. A 4-stars-good-laugh 🙂

      PS: There are some advantages to living in Europe, one of them is me reading this book.. Still most of the times I wish I lived in Australia :))
      PSS: I think you’ll like Alex, I know I did.

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