Review: The Vanishing Girl (The Vanishing Girl #1) by Laura Thalassa

The Vanishing Girl (The Vanishing Girl #1)
By Laura Thalassa
Ebook 287 pages
Publication March 15, 2014
Lavabrook Publishing Group

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Every night after Ember Pierce falls asleep, she disappears. She can teleport anywhere in the world—London, Paris, her crush’s bedroom—wherever her dreams lead her. Ten minutes is all she gets, and once time’s up, she returns to her bed. It's a secret she’s successfully kept for the last five years. But now someone knows.

A week after her eighteenth birthday, when frustratingly handsome Caden Hawthorne captures her, delivers her to the government, and then disappears before her eyes, Ember realizes two things: One, she is not alone. And two, people like her—teleporters—are being used as weapons.

Dragged off to a remote facility where others like her live, Ember’s forced to pair up with her former captor, Caden, to learn how to survive inside until she can escape. Only Caden’s making escape seem less and less appealing.

But even as Ember falls for the boy who got her into this mess, she knows that she is running out of time. Because the government has plans for those like her, and those plans might just cost Ember her life.

Okay, so this book is kind of crazy. Ember is an experiment, essentially. She's a young girl who has special abilities and she had no idea she wasn't the only one until the day the government came knocking on her door. She's then taken away from her family and whisked off to a secret facility.

I just want to say real quick that I can't really believe what the government is making these kids do. Like, these are teenagers. They're still kids. They're being sent into dangerous situations with no regard for their young lives. I mean, actually, I guess I can believe what the government is making them do. I'm not sure if this book was supposed to be a metaphor, but that's how I related to it, personally. But that's just me. You may get something completely different out of it than I did.

I also think, on some level that The Vanishing girl could be classified as a YA, or possibly coming of age. I kind of veered away from thinking of it as a YA because there is sex in it. I liked this story. I kind of had to put it out of my mind that these were just kids. It wasn't hard, the author did well in not always reminding us that these were just teenagers, though it was right at the back of my mind throughout the story. Of course they are mature. They have to be. They have to learn how to navigate very adult situations. So there is a bit of action in the book.

The story ends on a huge cliffhanger. I don't mind a cliffhanger, especially since I'm a series reader. I know they're just par for the course, but I wanted to make that clear. If you don't mind a cliffy, and you're one of the people who don't mind buying another book to finish a good story, I'd recommend The Vanishing Girl. If you're a cliffy hater, maybe skip this one. But personally, I'm going to get myself the second book asap.