Matt McAvoy Book Review

This was a fun book.  I would say it is clearly Young Adult, but I did find the language at times a little bit coarse for a younger audience – or perhaps not.  It does have all the standard ingredients: the high school girl with a crush on the quiet loner; inter-species attraction; sinister agency men in dark suits – this strikes me as Y.A. sci-fi fantasy through and through.  As such, perhaps not necessarily my cup of tea – I always struggle to keep engaged, and always find the inevitable romantic element a bit inane.  This book is no different, but Dana is a good writer, a smart writer, and she delivers this light-hearted, universal appeal story with a fair amount of tongue in cheek and a great sense of humour.  She also has a god sense of timing and an interesting array of well-developed and well-layered characters, which are in fact all quite likeable, which I find unusual in the genre.

I’ll have to be honest, my rating for the book is probably based quite largely on my personal taste, and I feel a little guilty about that, but at the same time, formula genres are a good opportunity for an author to break the mould a little, and it would be nice to see some real uniqueness in these books; generally, this is not really the case here, and I didn’t find The Connection pushed any buttons for me.  But, Dana is good, and the elements of her writing are decent when taken individually; overall, the choice of Y.A. sci-fi fantasy has a cynical formulaic feel to me.  Still, she can craft a story with aptitude and professionalism, write well and infuse endearing personality into her work, all of which is nice to read.  I wish her well with The Connection, as well as the inevitable sequel which I’ve no doubt is on its way.  For fans of the standard, this is a pleasant one to fill a couple of evenings.