This is not what you go in expecting. And that is wonderful. You find yourself immursed in a new world and fighting to find your way just like the characters.

*I received a free copy via NetGalley*
I was so excited when I got my wish! One of the reasons may or may not be the cover, I'm just that superficial ;)

Anyway, this book was good, well written and interesting. The characters were also fine. In fact, I guess everything was fine, and that was the problem. I thought I would be getting something extraordinary, but I didn't.

This book is fine YA, with original touches and an interesting enough plot.

This book had so many little twists that once I started it I had to finish it right away. The story and writing were so good that it was playing out in my head just like a movie. The character of Julia is easy enough to identify with but there were times when I was yelling at her in my head for not being more fearless. It was all part of the big build up at the end. I really liked how smoothly the story seemed to flow. The story was about a teenager with special powers learning to fit in instead of being true to herself and how she was forced to make a tough choice. However, there was so much more happening. This book had it all, love, teenage problems, difficult home life, and danger. I hope there is more to the story to come. I would really like to find out what happened to Julia's mother and to Angus. Thanks for the ARC NetGalley and Charlesbridge Teen.

Julia Jaynes Is not your average teenager. She is special. She has abilities far beyond normal humans and far beyond even what her family knows. She strives to be strong around the other outcasts, but is weak inside. That is until she meets John. John is more than what he appears, and may hold some secrets of his own.
The characters in Weisenberg’s novel are pretty well drawn out. They have distinctive personalities, grow over time, and make choices that follow what is to be expected. The plotline, however, is somewhat flat. It is a mystery, in the beginning, as to what exactly Julia is. When the big reveal to John finally arrives, it is somewhat of a letdown. There was not a lot of details behind the history of her people and that took away from the believability and power of the reveal. The story itself follows a generic flow of girl meets boy, a period of shyness and playful banter, the relationship, the big step, the betrayal, and the makeup. There was nothing about this novel that made it stand out from most of the other teenager angst novels out there. Even with the “mysterious” nature of her people, it needs more substance to bring excitement and intrigue.

Although the story was pretty good the characters needed more depth and just more....more. The ending of this one didn't sum anything up and I don't really feel invested enough to read the next one. This one I think suffers from not enough editing. I think with another look at it that it could be a 5 star read as the premise was so good. This one could have been much better.

Select isn’t the type of novel that I usually go for, and as a result, I got mix feelings about it.

The novel tells the story of Julia Jaynes, a teenage girl that is banished by her family to a public high school for putting her family reputation on the line. Gifted with unusual abilities, Julia struggles to adapt in a world where she needs to find herself, what she truly wants and what she’s willing to do to get it. When she meets John Ford, once a tennis prodigy, she starts seeing the world outside the boundaries set by her social status and her over-protected life.

For me, this was an easy read: easy to follow, no need to think, just go with the flow. Unfortunately, I didn’t connect with the story. The story-line is reasonably developed and the setting is a bit too cliche for my taste. I felt like it’s a bit too much teenage and family drama at some point and even though I understand that Julia had a sheltered life. Her wish for a strong male figure just made me feel like she is unable to deal with things herself and that didn’t set very well with me.

I would have liked to see a more felt description of emotions and connection between characters. I didn’t feel excitement or the need to keep reading the story even though I finished it. I like to feel like the story is unpredictable, and with this novel it was easy to see where it would end up.

The novel centres around the situations most teenagers go through: learning that life isn’t easy, that things change quickly and sometimes the people we get close to aren’t meant to stay in our lives forever.

I think the author still needs to polish her writing style a bit but the talent is there. I’m curious to read the next novel and see if there is an evolution.

Excellent - 5 stars! I was stunned to find out after I read this book that it was a debut novel. The publisher granted a wish that allowed me to read it before publication. It's both a sci-fi and YA novel about a group of genetically superior people who have to hide what they really are from normal humans. Those in this group have enhanced abilities and live longer than the normal life span. They have to be careful in order not to be detected.

The book centers around Julia, who is the only one in this special group whose mother was not one of the group. When she finds some things about this special group make her uncomfortable, she starts to look for answers. Julia becomes ostracized from the group and sent to a public high school where she meets John and a relationship begins.

The end left me with a lot of questions and I hear there may be a sequel to this story - I'll look forward to it.

Thanks to Marit Wiesenberg and Charlesbridge through Netgalley for granting my wish and providing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Oh, I really enjoyed this book - so unique!

I need to start though, at the beginning - which is my quibble about the book. For the first few chapters, I really thought I had started in the middle of the book. At one point, I went back and re-read the first few chapters to make sure I hadn't missed anything. I hadn't. What was confusing me was the missing background on who and what these people were. We eventually find out, and I'm guessing the author waited in order to build up the mystery, but instead I feel like I was confused for the first 20 - 25% of the book. No bueno. One star deducted.

On to what I liked...a group of people with special powers (which seem to be unique to the individual), and a sub-set of that group is told they can't use their powers. Or develop them. Going against this results in punishment ranging from humiliation to a scolding to being sent to public school (gasp!). This is exactly what happens to our main character Julia - she's sent off to public school, separated from her friends who are like her.

Sounds so boring, right? Girl goes to regular school. LOL But it's the opposite of boring! Not used to having to control her powers, Julia struggles to fit in and be normal (something all of us can relate to, right??). I loved her interactions with her superfriends and how they contrasted with her school friendship(s?). And then Julia meets a boy.

Julia's path to self-growth is not smooth, but it is steady throughout the story. I found some of her encounters very amusing (I might have even laughed out loud more than once!). I really enjoyed reading about her, what she discovers about who she is, and I thought the romance was sweet.

Yes, there's a decent cliff-hanger at the end and I will hands down be looking for the next book in this series when it comes out. It better not take long, because I want to see where this takes us!!

This was an interesting read and concept. The story line was fairly new and had some interesting twists and sub-plots, especially at the end. It would have been nice to have had a little more fleshing out of the hows and whys of the "select" peoples lives a little earlier in the story but in the end it worked. I look forward to reading the next installment and seeing what direction Marit will have Julie grow with her powers.

Wow was I delighted when I received an email from NetGalley and Charlesbridge teen, to say that my wish to read Select had been granted.
Julia is a member of a small group of ‘select’ people who are biologically different from their peers. She is living in Texas. She has always known that she must keep her gifts a secret however when she makes a mistake she is forced to attend a ‘normal’ high school. Where she becomes close to a boy called John.
This book is one I believe older teens who are bored of Vampires and Angels but still want a bit of paranormal will really enjoy this read, and it is a series to follow.

This didn't quite hit the spot for me in all honesty. The characters were hard to follow and the storyline didn't grip me enough to engage me sufficiently. It is a YA book, so perhaps their target audience can relate more, but I have read better YA.

Anne Wolfe's review
May 03, 2017  ·  edit


it was ok






What a nice surprise to have my wish fulfilled and receive a copy of "Select" by Marit Weisenberg. I am familiar with Austin and really like the subject matter dealing with psychic abilities and was looking forward to (Since this was my first NetGalley book, I made allowances for the lack of a polished manuscript.) Thanks to NetGalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Most disappointing was the obvious Young Adult target audience. I enjoyed the Twilight series and certainly don't object to the Young Adult genre. But this novel, aside from the occasional "f" word and teen age romance and sex, was simply at too low a level.

Julia Jaynes is the daughter of the leader of a sect whose members have paranormal abilities (why some and not all? Explain.) The people of this family are experiencing low fertility rates. (How can this be so when Julia and her half-sibling are less than one year apart? Novak, Julia's father, "trains" the children of the sect in their talents. Never explained is why some of them, called the Lost Boys, do not receive this training. Also not explained is why Julia herself with awesome abilities, is also not selected for training and why she hides these abilities from her omniscient father.

In punishment for saving her younger sister from drowning, Julia is relegated to a public Austin high school (from a select Prep School) where John, another student with whom she shares a mystic link, become friends and then lovers. Again, how does the omniscient Novak, her father, not figure this out?

Much of the writing is not well developed and disjointed , though in the end there is a sort of unsatisfying conclusion that leave an opening for sequels. In the middle, it was an effort to continue reading where it made no sense.

The idea for the novel shows evidence of originality and Weisenberg should be encouraged to continue, although with more editorial oversight. I'd give her another try.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and Marit Weisenberg for my advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Select was granted to me in a Netgalley wish and frankly it was right up my street.

Julia comes from a race of highly evolved humans who are trying desperately to fit in and stay under the radar, but the thing is they're just too noticeable. A little bit too beautiful, a little bit too smart, a little bit too dangerous... but something weird is going on in Julia's perfect world, she has abilities which she wasn't supposed to keep, her father, the leader of their race is keeping dark secrets and humans are going insane around him. But when she's banished to 'normal' school she meets John and everything she ever believed in is turned on its head.



I really liked this novel, the pace was kind of slow but it worked for it to be like that, it didn't feel too slow it just wasn't speeding by full throttle and that was the pace which suited it. Julia was a likeable character, on the edge and not typically gorgeous like the rest of them. And I really liked John he was a great human! I hated Liv her sister who was just the weakest, brain washed self centred b*tch!



I loved the concept it is as far as I'm aware a completely original one and I love that the story has been left open for a sequel!



The mix of Sci-fi and real life was done really well and frankly there just isn't enough sci-fi YA on the market which for me is one of the main things that sets this book above the rest. Nothing was revealed too quickly but that just made you want to read it even more to find out what happens next. An easy 5* from me for this one!

When I read the blurb, my thoughts were “OMG, abilities! Secrets! Supernatural stuff!” but then I finished the book and felt cheated! (it is not a good feeling, let me tell you!)

Julia Jaynes is a super-human! She is a daughter of the leader of these highly-evolved humans who live in closed community, trying their best to not get exposed.

Sounds like a great premises for some big sci-fi / urban fantasy series, right?

Wrong!

I wanted magic and instead I got romance for the entire width of the book. I wanted to know everything about the abilities and Julia’s background but instead I only received small hints here and there to keep me engaged.

Full review will be posted on my blog closer to the publication date.

DNF at 33%. I tried. Good lord, did I ever try to even just get to the 50% mark. This wasn't about a lack of interest in the story (otherwise, I would've assumed this just wasn't for me and passed on leaving a rating) but rather a handful of things I took issue with that I am pretty confident reading the remaining 2/3 wouldn't come even close to resolving.

I have a pretty strong opinion that this book shouldn't even be getting published--at least, not without a major revision. Line edits aren't going to suffice in this case. The things needs a full overhaul before it should ever see the light of day.

We've got the story of Julia and her people, a race of advanced species of humans(?) who stick to themselves and have powers beyond ordinary peoples' imaginings. They're trying to preserve their way of life, except Julia makes a mistake that could've outed them and ruined everything (which I disagree with, but more on that later). As punishment, she gets sent to a public high school to prove herself, or something, I guess kinda maybe. Who the crap knows? Of course, there's a male love interest because duh. This is formulaic YA at its finest so there kind of has to be.

Breakdown of issues I had that led me to abandon this fic:

1) The writing style. First person is pretty common for YA but in this case, Julia's in her head more than an active participant in what's going on around her. It's not even a good introspective; her thought process hops around, she gives background about her life and family members for pages on end, which pulls a reader out of a story, and since she doesn't know the full extent of her powers, readers are left with this nebulous sense of what's going on, what way of life she's even striving to preserve, etc., etc. We're led to believe that Julia's kind are more advanced, yet also more reliant on instinct like animals, which makes them appear colder toward one another unless they're pretending in front of regular humans. OK. Except this gets employed kind of arbitrarily, where the family's all affectionate in front of their household maid one moment, then shooting serial killer eyes at human outsiders when they all take an excursion to the beach.

Likewise, Julia alternates between referring to her father by his first name and by a regular term like 'dad'. I personally found the first name references kind of weird-bordering-on-squicky when taken into account with her description of her dad as this sexy aggressor-type figure. She also talks about the strong relationships she has with her kind, with her sister and this dude named Angus that I guess both she and her sister like but who knows for sure because the writing's not clear one way or another about virtually anything in this story. It's one thing to reveal things gradually, but the writing meanders from one topic to another and sometimes even directly contradicts itself without apparent reason.

Then there's... Too. Many. Adverbs. People can't just talk in this book. They say things excitedly, skeptically, ostentatiously. Someone, please shoot me fastly. Reading those unnecessary extras gets tedious. Same for the lack of description. There was a lot of "I felt X" or "they did X" but not much showing or meaningful description.

2) The plot. Makes the sense that doesn't. You've got these hyper-evolved humans who don't want to get discovered, yet who live in mansions, go to exclusive schools, and have sports stadiums named after them. Right. Then you've got Julia getting the brunt of the punishment for some dumb thing her sister did (that she technically saved her from), so she gets shunned by her community--kind of--and sent to a public high school as punishment.

Which, you know, with people as well known as Julia and her family seems like a swell idea that won't in any way draw attention to a community that wants to keep on the DL. Oh wait.

Then, you've also got half of the kids being kept away from developing their powers (Julia included) while the others are actively training (Julia's sister is in this group). There's some conspiracy theory about why this is happening but it gets haphazardly brought up (again, in broad daylight in public when they're trying to remain inconspicuous) but even the characters themselves admit it makes no sense, and, besides, Julia is way more focused on this hunk whose mind she can read who happened to both be at the beach incident and now attends the same school as her.

Maybe the plot tightens up later on, but I can't force myself to read through a single page more to find out how this hot mess of a story wraps up, if it even does (my prediction is the ending is a cliffhanger since this appears to be the first in a series).

3) Julia is a major Mary-Sue character. Even worse, readers are expected to believe she isn't because of her constant, self-perceived victimization.

We've got this character whose stepmom clearly dislikes her (let's be honest here--something's up about Julia's birth mother and whatever that reveal was going to be leads to her being super special, which is why she can manifest some powers even though she has no training and has been expressly forbidden to practice them). The wrongs Julia commits really aren't her fault (which even gets brought up a couple times throughout what I managed to get through) but she's still treated poorly and punished for them, when no one else involved faces any apparent consequences.

To make matters worse, she can apparently hear the thoughts of hunky love interest, and her ability to know what he's thinking has already started leading to some sketchy manipulation on her part. An allegory on the conflicts of mind-reading invasion of privacy this book is not.

On the whole, this book presented an interesting premise that got me wanting to sit down and read it, but ultimately offered a seriously disappointing execution that I feel is partially the editor's fault for not tearing it apart and tightening it up into something more coherent and effective.

Definitely a fun novel! It dragged a bit in the middle, but overall, the characters were well written and the plot was enticing!

I was so happy when my wish was granted on Netgalley to read an ARC of this book and I can't wait to talk about it with other readers when it comes out. Great sci-fi YA book. Many layers to the story and fleshed out characters. I can't wait for the next book!

What a strange and convoluted book this was!

I suppose I expected it to be a bit more fantastical, a bit more whimsical, a bit more sci-fi, and a lot more exciting, but... it wasn't. I started and stopped it many times because I kept getting bored.

I really just failed to understand a conflict early on between Julia and her father that ends up with her going to public school. I could not buy that premise and had a lot of negative feelings and questions as to why this was happening.

None of these characters felt particularly well developed to me. There was potential, but from a strange sibling relationship to a forced family dynamic to an almost suicidal friendgroup, all of the connections in this seemed very artificial and unreal. And don't get me started on the John/Julia thing--there was zero substance there. I couldn't get involved.

I like the idea of highly-evolved humans, but again, the backstory wasn't developed here and the future story wasn't really either. I think I'd be far more interested in reading about a character set in the future of these people. There was potential for a lot of commentary on the environment and on society, but these were all overlooked. It ultimately came off as having a cult-like feel and I couldn't really root for anyone.

There are far more exciting and engaging YA books upcoming that deal with important themes, and I'm not too fond of this one as a stand in for those.

5 Conditional Stars

I really loved this plot. It's a little bit spooky. The tension runs high and I was always worried something horrible was going to happen.

The blurb is spot on. It basically summarizes the plot. I think the only thing it doesn't cover is how difficult it is for Julia and her people to be out in public. They have to be constantly on guard holding back their natural abilities so that they don't end up on the wrong end of a microscope. Going to public school is, in fact, a very difficult thing for her to do.

I desperately wanted Julia to think and be smart and SEE what was going on around her. But I completely understood her point of view. Given her age and her sheltered existence, breaking out of a particular mindset was extremely difficult.

Everything was difficult for Julia. Her family dynamics, her frienships, even her self-doubt had her tiptoeing on eggshells through life.

Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Brilliant plot.

I read an ARC of this book. Some ARCs are ready for publication, others are not quite that close. This one was sent out long before publication date and it's obvious that it is still in need of formatting and editing. My five stars are wholly dependent on those things being cleared up before publication.

I read this book in one sitting. I just couldn't put it down! The plot was original, which sadly cannot be said of a lot of young adult fiction lately. The ending seemed a bit rushed and left me hoping for a sequel asap.