Review: Dangerous

Dangerous by Shannon Hale
Release Date ~ March 4, 2014
Bloomsbury
ISBN13: 9781599901688
ARC received from Penguin Canada for review

Goodreads Synopsis:
Maisie Danger Brown just wanted to get away from home for a bit, see something new. She never intended to fall in love. And she never imagined stumbling into a frightening plot that kills her friends and just might kill her, too. A plot that is already changing life on Earth as we know it. There's no going back. She is the only thing standing between danger and annihilation.

From NY Times bestselling author Shannon Hale comes a novel that asks, How far would you go to save the ones you love? And how far would you go to save everyone else?

Dangerous is a book with incredible potential, and there were a number of elements I really enjoyed. But this book as a whole ended up being a hard sell for me, and I was left unconvinced by the story and its characters.

1. Plenty of space, science, and superpowers:
   
   As soon as there is a book that has a description which mentions space, I jump all over that - it's almost a guaranteed way to get me to read a book. I loved that Dangerous had a space story heavily influenced by science, because that made Maisie stand out to me as a character I could readily envision as a real person. The fact that Maisie is also missing a hand made her a really great character, too - we don't see this very often in YA, and I think it's so important to read about different characters with their own life hurdles (although I wasn't a fan of how this was shown).

The problem is that this sounds like a dream, right? The problem was that the story just didn't deliver for me. I had the absolute hardest time with the romance, and it seemed to completely take over the book. It was present on every page, and it felt too forced me to buy into it and care. 

But most importantly, the story was far too convoluted. I felt like I had whiplash trying to keep up with the fast pace and how quickly the story would change. It jumps around from one idea to another, and some characters seem to be stuck in the story for no apparent reason. 

I actually found some of the jokes to be funny (or "punny" hehe) because I sometimes share that cheesy sense of humour. It was quirky, rather than annoying to me, but it wasn't enough to save the book. And I found Maisie's relationship with her parents to be remarkably touching. 

Overall, Dangerous was a disappointing read for me because it felt like too much story in one little book, and I was completely unable to relate with the book or enjoy some of its most important plot points.