Title: The Vanishing Girl
Series: The Vanishing Girl #1
Author: Laura Thalassa
Year: 2014
Rating: 3.5/5
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Once I read the blurb of the novel, I could not get it out of my mind. Teleportation? Governmental secrets? Kick ass heroine? “The Vanishing Girl” has all of that.
Eighteen-year-old Ember is not a regular teen. Every night, after she falls asleep, she can teleport wherever she wishes but only within the time limit of ten minutes. She believes that her night time visits have gone unnoticed.
Soon after her eighteenth birthday, she discovers that she is not the only one in the world with those abilities. She is captured by the government and forced into a remote facility with many other teenagers, just like her. She turns out to be part of a special secret project for the creation of super soldiers. Now Ember has no choice but to accept the training of the government and to become one of their special agents.
The Plot
The book was an easy and enjoyable read. It was quick to draw me in and for me to complete in (almost) one sitting. The plot was dynamic, full of plot twists and turns that kept me reading; the action and the secrets Ember was uncovering kept me engaged and entertained.
In fact, I would have prefered if the book had been even heavier on the action and the secrets surrounding the project of the teleporters. Because, other than that, the unrealistic “romance” was predominant. Caden, the male lead, is Ember’s pair and he takes quite a few liberties, using this an excuse. The two of them spend the first part of the book by Ember finding herself in situations where she is naked and Caden ogling at her. Then it takes them about a week (or two?) to fall in love and they spent the second half of the book mostly having sex.
Now, this book comes with its warning and I am all in for protected sex and so on. But it feels like Ember and Caden’s relationship was forced just in favour of him going from downright harassing her to the two of them having sex. I love a smutty story but even those tend to have structure and context.
I feel that wasting such a good plot in order to include a steamy (and pretty much unhealthy) romance takes a lot away from the entertaining value of the novel.
The Setting
I am a big fan of the “Jumper” franchise so I am always ready to welcome another story about teleporting. And while the concept of genetically engineered human beings is very intriguing, I found the idea lacking in some aspects. For example, how did government manage to always send Ember on her missions in appropriate clothes? Why did she always wake up naked then?
Those were all somehow minor details but they definitely undermined the theory behind teleporting.
The Characters
Ember is actually a pretty good lead. She is quick to learn (maybe even too quick), she is smart and resourceful, she is independent. She is not naïve and always questions everything. It is refreshing to meet a character like her in a genre that until recently was hell-bent on portraying its female leads as naïve and helpless.
Caden, on the other hand, is an absolute jerk. Comparable to Lux’s Daemon Black, this guy is a hellspawn. He shows no respect for Ember, her wishes and her personal space until they supposedly fall in love. I found his behaviour towards her unexcusable and unapropriate and it unsettles me that he is supposed to be the main love interest in this series.
The rest of the characters that appear feel underdeveloped and this is largely due to the fact that Ember seems to spend barely any time with anyone else but Caden. She meets Adrian several times on her nighttime teleportations and has a few conversations with him but he acts more as a device for Ember’s plot than an actual character. Desiree also had the potential to be an interesting character but unfortunately, she is quickly boiled down to a trope.
The Verdict
Had someone warned me about the romance in this book, I probably would have not picked it up as it heavily reminded me of the Lux series. However, as far as the action plot goes, it is worth a read. My advice is to just ignore Caden and his advances and concentrate on the secrets surrounding Ember’s teleportation abilities – she is an awesome lady whose story is worth to follow until the end.
The Book Palace 