Review: Endless by Amanda Gray

Jenny Kramer knows she isn't normal. After all, not everybody can see the past lives of people around them.

When she befriends Ben Daulton, resident new boy, the pair stumble on an old music box with instructions for “mesmerization” and discover they may have more in common than they thought. Like a past life.

Using the instructions in the music box, Ben and Jenny share a dream that transports them to Romanov Russia and leads them to believe they have been there together before. But they weren't alone. Nikolai, the mysterious young man Jenny has been seeing in her own dreams was there, too. When Nikolai appears next door, Jenny is forced to acknowledge that he has travelled through time and space to find her. Doing so means he has defied the laws of time, and the Order, an ominous organization tasked with keeping people in the correct time, is determined to send him back.

While Ben, Jenny and Nikolai race against the clock - and the Order - Jenny and Nikolai discover a link that joins them in life - and beyond death.

So much potential. I had such high hopes for this novel because the premise was so interesting. But I guess I should have figured the book would turn out this way when the word "traveled" was spelled wrong in the blurb. Yeah, yeah ... I know that sounds mean but as a reader, I feel robbed. Robbed of the experience that I had so hoped would happen when reading this book. 

On with the slaughter! Haha ... mostly kidding. So the characters were okay ... I really didn't like Jenny. She seemed shallow and selfish and to be honest, her name drove me up the damn wall. I don't know why. I have friends that are named Jenny and it's never bothered me before ... but it really drove me crazy and I really couldn't remember who in the hell "Jenny" was when I would read it in the book. That lasted for close to 60 pages. Not good. 

I did enjoy one character and that was Ben. HE should have been the focus of the story because I loved ever Ben-moment that I got! He was just the perfect character, he had just the right amount of screwed up to make him interesting and urge you to root for him. I'll miss Ben.

The part of the book that I really enjoyed and kept me reading was the stuff about Nicholas II, the last Russian emperor because it was the most interesting out of everything on those pages. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to redeem the book. There were just too many coincidences that helped out the characters or freak accidents that happened out of no where for no explanation. Could I have missed the explanation? Sure. I was having a hard time focusing on pretty much everything in Endless, so there is a possibility that these things were explained. But again, having things spelled out for me wouldn't have made the book better. It was, in a word, meh. But the cover is pretty ... it does have that going for it. Not for me. OOOH. And I didn't like the ending. It was a cop-out and too simple for what had happened throughout this whole book. I don't care if it will take the author an extra 20-30 pages. You make that ending count! I don't have to like the ending, I just want it to stand up with the rest of the book and tie everything up or have an epic cliffhanger. I don't ask for much.

I should have consulted my Ouija Board before picking this one up.

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