Transcendence- Review

When a visit to the Tower of London triggers an overwhelmingly real vision of a beheading that occurred centuries before, Cole Ryan fears she is losing her mind. A mysterious boy, Griffon Hall, comes to her aid, but the intensity of their immediate connection seems to open the floodgate of memories even wider.

As their feelings grow, Griffon reveals their common bond as members of the Akhet—an elite group of people who can remember past lives and use their collected wisdom for the good of the world. But not all Akhet are altruistic, and a rogue is after Cole to avenge their shared past. Now in extreme danger, Cole must piece together clues from many lifetimes. What she finds could ruin her chance at a future with Griffon, but risking his love may be the only way to save them both.

Full of danger, romance, and intrigue, Transcendence breathes new life into a perpetually fascinating question: What would you do with another life to live? (goodreads.com) 


Alright true confession time. I was checking out the teen blog form my old town library trying to find ways to spice up my own library's blog and they have one of those awesome things where the book cover scroll and you can click one to see the book description. I saw this cover go by and clicked it because the cover gave the impression that the book was going to have some type of fantasy theme, but the guy on the cover was Africa American... and I was very confused. I'm not going to get preachy on you about minority characters in books because that's never been my thing, but being African American myself, it would be nice to have more opportunities to read about characters that look like me. Now there are quite a few novels out there, I have Walter Dean Myers books in my library just like everyone else, but most of it is... depressing. Most of what I stumble across where the main character is African American is about inner cities, poverty, absentee fathers, drugs, and other things that fall into that category. Now I do love that in many of these books the teen is overcoming adversity, and working hard to be a better person, and these type of novels are important to teens in similar situations to those. Those teens need to know that there is hope, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, you just may have to wade though some bad things before you reach that light. However sometimes I just want to read a book like Divergent, Uglies, The Fault in Our Stars, Legend, or Between the Lines, where the character looks like I do. So when I saw this cover, I immideatley clicked on it to see what it was about and the it's premise was right up my alley (as you may be able to guess from the titles I listed tee hee hee). Sorry I hate when people ramble on like this, I'm now climbing off my box, basically I just wanted to provide the background for how I found this book, because I'm thanking the gods for it.

This is the first book I've read that's about reincarnation (with the exception of Fallen) and I loved it. I've always been open to the idea of reincarnation and I'm a serious believer in Karma, so everything in this book fit perfectly with me. The thought that there might be people out there who remember their past lives was fantastic, and horribly sad all at the same time. I'm a big fan of jumping in head first with books, I don't have the patience to go though all the back story first, I need to start with action and drama and then we can gradually fill in the details. This book did exactly that starting with one of Cole's flashbacks on the second page, that's a sure fired way to hooks readers, and man was i hooked. I read the book in one day. 

Poor Cole thinks she's losing her mind with all of the flashbacks she's having, and when Griffon offers her a completely fantastical explanation, she wants to blow him off, but not only is he drop dead gorgeous, but some of what he says makes sense. Now I have to say that I live the way that Omololu created these characters. I feel like a tremendous amount of thought when into everything about this book. As much as it broke my heart to see Griffon pulling away from Cole physically in the beginnings of the book, he's reasoning was almost flawless. Someone who remembers tons of past lives is going to be different that the average seventeen year old, and the fact that Griffon recognizes this and tries to stay away from Cole physically despite the fact that he's clearly attracted to her was well thought out and I approved. (Two thumbs up). It made a story that was clearly fantasy, almost seem to be a reality. I also liked Veronique, it took me a while to figure out what was up with her, much longer than it has in other books, but one I figured her out, again... two thumbs up.

So I highly recommend this book, the characters are creative, and realistic, and this world that Omololu put together is beautifully thought out. Besides if you don't read this one, then what are you going to do when the sequel comes out next month. 

Malinda Lo is offer up an ARC of the second book called Intuition on her blog. I've entered twice. Here's hoping, I never get ARCs.