Book Review: The Year of the Great Seventh by Teresa Orts

My Rating: 

Book: The Year of the Great Seventh

Author: Teresa Orts

Page Numbers: 295 pages

Publication date: July 6th, 2013

Synopsis:
Sophie has always felt out of step—an outsider, even amongst friends in her high school with all the hype about celebrity culture. Her life in L.A. seems to have been already written for her, but when her junior year starts, it all takes a drastic turn. When she crosses paths with the school's heartthrob, Nate Werner, they fall for each other in a way neither can understand. What they don’t know is that by giving in to their desires, they are unlocking an ancient Egyptian prophecy that threatens to return Earth to the dark ages.
To undo the curse, Nate and Sophie embark on an adventure that takes them across the country. But their quest is not only to save the world as they know it. It is also a fight for their very survival. Behind the scenes, there are those that are counting on them to fail.

My Review:

I received an ARC copy from the author to read and write an honest review in return.

When I read the synopsis and the first few chapters of this book I was so excited about the concept and the story's potential, but to my greatest regret I wasn't as enthusiastic about this book in general once I finished it. I found the concept so promising. I love a good "lover story" with an abundance of (historical) adventures and mystical prophecies, however there were so many things within the book which confused and disappointed me, and unfortunately I did not feel connected to the characters nor the story. There are a few points I would like to go over, so lets get to it!

The Story

As I said before, and I think the best way to describe the way I feel towards the story is that I felt so disconnected to it. I often found the story vague, unrealistic and incoherent. I am super interested in Egyptian mythology, so when I read that this book was revolving around this, I was so intrigued. But I felt that the actual mythology, prophecies and historical Egyptian information was vaguely explained by Ms. Orts, and I simply did not always understand certain things which I felt were suppose to MAKE the story. 

I have a feeling that Ms. Orts almost assumed that the reader is suppose to know all about Egyptian history, as certain figures, monuments and historical points were mentioned and were left with no explanation to what they actually meant or how it was directly related to the plot and the main characters. This made it so hard for me to imagine this in my head, and piece together the puzzle of the story. It left me SO confused and frustrated as I felt that I could not connect the dots and genuinely understand what the heck was going on and how any of this historical information had any relation to the story and why it was affecting  the main characters.

Overall, I found it such a creative concept on how a present day "teenage" romance had a (fatal) link to a historical Egyptian prophecy, but I just could not fathom what the link was between these Egyptian prophecies and the actual characters in the book and why they were cursed by this prophecy. 

The Characters

Simply put, unfortunately I could not connect with them. I found it at first extremely hard to picture Sophia's physicality, and that is something which I hate not getting. I want to be able to perfectly picture a main character (or any character for that matter) in my head, however I found myself juggling with how Sophia looked like as I found these characteristics were lacking in the description.

I was not fond of Sophia's personality. Her hopelessness and unrealistic trait of sometimes being a little bit of a "push over" and not strongly speaking out what is on her mind when it came to her relationship with Nate, was often quite frustrating to me. Sophie is suppose to be a 16-year old girl, however I often found her acting almost younger than her age when it came to the way she dealt with parents or school issues, and at other times way too mature for her age when it came to sex and romantic feelings she had towards Nate.

The love relationship between Sophia and Nate was alright. It was supposed to be an insta-love, star-crossed lover's relationship, but unfortunately I found this unrealistically depicted by the author. I found it quite silly how "all of a sudden", in their Junior year of High School they fell for each other, and as time flew by their love formed into an obsession. The time that passed on throughout this book was often described in weeks, however, I never got the impression that anything really happened or changed throughout this time passage, and unfortunately this made the story often tedious.

In Conclusion

The ending of this book was so hectic and abrupt that it left me really confused on what actually happened. The author left the reader with a cliffhanger, however this did not move me in any way. It did not excite nor entice me to look forward to what would happen next and this is something I find very unfortunate. I did not want to rate this book below 3 stars, as I think the concept of the book is highly original and has so much potential for development.

I truly hope that the sequel will completely out do the first book of the series. None the less, I find it so amazing and daring for an independent author, such as Teresa Orts, to write such a creative story, something that I could not even begin manifesting. I definitely want to give props to her for coming up with such a original story, as I believe that this is her very first published book and she has so much potential as an author!

Unfortunately this book did not quite do it for me, however I know (from reading various online reviews and from Goodreads) that this book did interest many other readers who simply adore it! So if you like how the synopsis sounds, then I would definitely give this book a shot, as my opinion does not mean that you will not like! So please give it a try!