I made a wish and it was granted, in more way than one! This book had me hooked from the start, even though I did begin slightly confused and wondering if I had missed something. However, upon further reading everything all began to make sense. I was pulled into this world where people who were more than just human existed. And I loved every moment of it.

There was the super human abilities, the romance, the teenage problems that we all know too well, and two very different sisters. I really couldn't stop reading it once I had started, I sure hope that there are more great things to come! I would definitely recommend this book to my friends and family.

Ahoy there me mateys! I received this young adult sci-fi eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. So here be me honest musings . . .

select (Marit Weisenberg)

Title: select

Author: Marit Weisenberg

Publisher: Charlesbridge Teen

Publication Date: October 3, 2017 (hardcover/e-book)

ISBN: 9781580898065

Source: NetGalley

This was a book I stumbled across that had a fascinating premise and I was excited to have me wish granted. A group of biologically different humans lives in Austin, TX. Julia, is one of these "select" people but has always had trouble fitting in. Forced to keep a low profile and told to hide her gifts, she makes a mistake and finds herself forced to go to ::gasp:: a public high school with "normal" humans. What will she do?

Apparently she will have insta-lust and waffle a lot. Now this was a fast read and only took a couple of hours. I did finish it, which was good. But seriously for a group of special people trying to hide their gifts, they seem to go out of their way to flaunt themselves. The leader (Julia's dad) is a billionaire investor. The whole group lives in mansions, wears designer clothes, and drives expensive cars. I have known teens who drive BMWs and such. They do NOT blend.

The other kids in the "select" group are daredevils and troublemakers and yet none of them have ever been caught or truly punished. Mommy and Daddy just get the lawyers to bail them out. So the premise that Julia blows their cover and has to be punished seemed unbelievable. And Julia being forced to go to public school for punishment did not lead to anything other than fodder for the insta-love relationship. Julia skates through school with no real consequences for anything really. Though she learns to control her powers by using them in stupid ways. Bland.

The relationship itself was kinda creepy and self-serving, especially in the beginning. Julia and John have instant chemistry but her method of learning about him is to read his mind without permission and then use that knowledge to encourage him. Just because she is bored. I would rather they had a better relationship than one built on lies and some flashes of exposed leg. Oh add in some non-appealing pseudo love triangle junk and shake not stir.

Even the powers of Julia and the "select" left something to be desired. Instead of rooting for them, all of the people in her family group felt like a cult. The powers, like telekinesis or enhanced stamina, were barely used at all and when they were, it felt more like whiny magic people throwing temper tantrums. If that is what it meant to be one of the "select" then I will gladly pass.

I would have loved for this to have been a deeper look into different branches of human evolution living alongside each other. I would have loved the "select" to have used their intelligence and powers for something other than money and solitude. I would have loved for all of the characters to have more depth. I would have loved for Julia's golden cage to have actually been appealing so that she had a better reason for her inner conflict.

Overall the premise did not live up to its promise. Sigh.

So lastly . . .

Thank you Charlesbridge Teen!

Side note: Some mateys disagree with me. Check out this review by the leisure diaries!

The publisher's website has this to say about the novel:

“It had always been a fact of life that we were biologically different—better—and that it had to be kept secret.”

Seventeen-year-old Julia Jaynes has the perfect life. She’s beautiful, freakishly athletic, and extremely smart. That’s because she comes from a race of highly-evolved humans living in the heart of Austin, Texas.

In order to protect their anonymity and preserve their elite society, Julia’s powerful father forces her to suppress her abilities. When she accidentally demonstrates her super human prowess in public, she’s banished to the one place meant to make her feel inferior: public high school. Thrust into the confusion and humiliation of a normal high school, Julia is just trying to keep her head down when John Ford strolls into her life. An outsider and tennis jock, John is immediately attractive to Julia as a curiosity. She can even read his mind. But as Julia's newfound powers over John grow, so do her feelings.

When she discovers her father has been hiding dangerous secrets, for the first time in her life, Julia begins to question her restrictive upbringing. Caught between the prejudices of her manipulative father and the allure of an outsider’s life, Julia must decide how she will define herself—and who she will betray.

To visit the author’s Facebook page go to:

Marit Weisenberg - Author

To buy the novel please visit:

select - Book

To add to Goodreads go to:

Yer Ports for Plunder List

I really enjoyed this book. I love Julia and johns story and cant wait to read more ...please give me more!!!

Select by Marit Wiesenberg
Select… it’s been a few days now, and I am still struggling with all the words for this story. Out of all the beautiful poetical words I got nothing but one word. Seriously the one word that describes my experience is WEIRD! This book is weird, and I do like me some weird… but this is so … weird. In a strongly good way. I know weird right.

I don’t even know how to explain this book, like I really enjoyed it because I read it all in one day. Select has that twilight feel, kind of maybe a love triangle but not really. Well kind of im unsure to be honest I was just going with the flow. Kind of like this review to everyone it’s just going to look weird, but to me till make perfect sense, and I think for everyone to understand this story and to understand the weirdness of this review and the story again you should buy yourself a copy!

I like LOVE the cover, and when it comes available I wants, nope I needs it on my book shelf!

Julia has special abilities, her whole family really does well her whole group…cult…peoples did. Honestly her dads a douche her stepmom is a b*tch and her sister is no better, her dad runs the show and something bad happens and they single out Julie more than they already have and send her to like the other side, like where the normal people go to school I guess but they don’t know that there are special gifted humans like Julie out there, apart from the hot dude John!

John is awesome, I really like his character. I like all the characters apart from the mean humans. Julie and John are meant to be,but they cannot be together but that doesn't last and if Julies cult people find out that they are together it will just be bad for everyone involved.
I can see this review is already long and so very weird, gah! I do try I promise that if you pick it up you should like it if you enjoy the twilight or like anything Young adulty. I found the writing had this great flow and kept me interested and invested in everything that was happening.

So many twist and turns and OMG moments, it was a pacing back and forwards type of setting, wondering holy cow batman is this happening! I think this book is mainly about the choices you must make for yourself and how they could impact on others and how you accept who you are, and deciding is what you want for yourself is the right choice like if you were at a crossroad would you go left or right…

Marit has written a very good book that will I think attract a lot of readers, I am looking forward to more, but I hope she doesn’t ruin what has already happened with Julie and John!
I found it to be believable, and what I thought I wouldn’t enjoy there was no insta love and I love me some insta fluff there was none of that. Select read at a good pace and I loved the plot of it all.
Solid 4 out of 5 stars

Absolutely wonderful read. Can't wait for the next one. Great writing and character development.

***ARC received in exchange of an honest opinion***

This book was different than anything else I've read before, even in its genre. While it does have some similarities in some aspects to other stories, the main plotline was very different.

Overal I enjoyed it, although for my tastes, it was maybe a bit too infatile, even though it's a YA book. It was also very believable, despite it being a sort of "supernatural" plotline. I'd say it was more sci-fi than actual fantasy, but you'd have to read it to understand what I'm talking about without me giving any spoilers.

I liked the main character, even though the fact she let everyone in her family sort of step on her annoyed me, because she did not seem like the type who'd let something like that happen. I liked the hero as well, even though it was a bit borderline insta-love. I would have liked to have seen more angst in the storyline between them.

I also liked how the "Select" almost felt like a cult and their leader like one of those compound cult leaders. It was unexpected and the correlation was smart. The oublic school parts were the best and I wished they were more explored. I actually connected with the characters to some extent, even though it was too YA for my tastes. I can do YA, but it was anost like the book wasn't supposed to be that YA, but the writing turned it into a younger story than it was supposed to.

I was, however, confused with the ending. Imm not sure if it was meant to be a series or a standalone book. Because if it's a standalone there were some MAJOR loopholes there and they needed to be fulfilled. And if it was a seeies, Imd like some indication of it being so, because I feel I was just left hanging there.

Overal it was an interesting debut, and Imd like to see more of this story to maybe change my opinion and get out of the fence Imm still in about it.

I loved the premise of this book, and the characters were intriguing. But it quickly became confusing. I actually thought I'd missed a book before this because things were mentioned as if I should already know all about them. Eventually, I figured it out, but the angsty approach to Julia and John wasn't to my personal taste. That said, I thought the ending was fairly strong (despite some rushing), and I think it's a nice set-up for the next one. In fact, I may find the next one much less frustrating because this time I know what's going on.

Select by Marit Weisenberg is a solid addition to your YA collection where fantasy is popular! Julia is not a normal teenage girl; instead, she posses abilities that many would brush off as impossible. With the ability to read the mind of a boy that she's forbidden to get close to, Julia falls deeper into the web of lives around her. But, she's not the only one who's lying and the author executes a seemingly-happy-ending while setting up the reader for a second book. Fast-paced, alluring characters and a stirring love story will keep readers engaged and desperate for more!

After reading the synopsis I was super excited when my wish was granted.

It starts off super slow (I understand it's about super humans laying low but) it just felt to slow for me.

The romance is instant with not much substance. It just wasn't for me.

Three Stars.

To start with, I was super thrilled to have my wish granted on Netgalley! It was a wonderful feeling because I really wanted to read this book.

The plot revolves around Julia Jaynes, daughter of a multi-billionaire named Novak. She has superhuman abilities ingrained into her genes, thanks to her being a descendant of an ancient tribe named the Puras. She mingles and spends most of her time with this group of boys who nickname themselves as "The Lost Kids". They are all a bunch of teens who each have unique abilities embedded into each of them. All was fine until they go down to the beach with Julia's sister, Olivia where they almost expose themselves in public, something Novak strives to avoid.

This, being Julia's fault is the reason why she is sent away from Barton Springs to Austin to distance herself from the others and learn to discipline herself. The aforementioned occurrence at the beach involved a normal human, John Ford with whom Julia connected instantly by eye contact (Bleh). Coincidentally, John goes to Austin High and is also in Julia's English class.

One major point that made rate the book three stars was the romance between John and Julia. They keep making eye contact and Julia can read John's mind, blah blah. Okay. But where were the conversations? That slowly built up chemistry that explodes after reaching the breaking limit? These were sadly absent. Since more than half of the book revolves around John, Julia and their meaningless, unfathomable obsession with each other, this gets a little frustrating. I mean, Angus (Julia's "crush" and best friend) has more chemistry with Julia than John.

Putting aside the lack of chemistry, another thought kept popping into my head as I read the book. I couldn't help but notice the parallels between the book and Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I swear I'm not doing these Twilight references on purpose but if you write the book from the Vampires' point of view, that is, the "keeping their identity a secret", "having a doctor among them" and "leaving the town when things start getting suspicious" portions, both the books would sound interchangeable but for the fact that Select is about humans with creepy, superpower genes. Other than these two points, I absolutely loved the book. I must say that the last few pages, with its unexpected twists and turns, completely changed my opinion about the book. I went "Maybe this book isn't that bad after all". And that last line left me hanging over the edge.

Overall, I loved the book and can't wait for the next book! Great job!
*Received ARC via Charlesbridge Teen and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

This was a fun book to read- while at first it seemed confusing because it wasn't clear that their was a whole community who had special abilities and how they differed from the rest of the world, once you figure that out the book sucks you in and doesn't let go until the last page! There was so much in this book- suspense, romance, comedy, sci-fi. I loved every second of it, and the ending leaves you wanting more- cannot wait to continue to read this series!!

This novel was definitely different than most I’ve become accustomed to in the YA genre because it was more of a melting between Sci Fi and YA which I found intriguing and a nice change of pace.

This is supposed to be the first in a new series and Marit Weisenberg has a unique insight into the human condition that comes through her characters, their psychological development which evolves through the choices they make, and how they deal with life in general.

The only downside that I could see is the romance part between the two main characters. I can seriously see that being an either love it or hate it part of the book’s storyline because it’s classic YA. Considering what a different type of plot overall the author went for it would’ve been nice to see more depth and complexity in this area. I also wish she had tightened up the dialogue some, at times she made the characters sound older through her word choices than they were purported to be.

She has a way of creating characters you will either invest in or hate.

There are some interesting surprises and the conclusion will make you want to read the sequel when it hits. There just seemed to be a little bit of everything in this book which made it compelling enough to read, worthy of my time and curious to see where she’ll go in the second.

This is the first in the Select series and I was glad the publisher was able to fix the formatting of the ebook version.
Here is my take on the book: the beginning was a bit clustered as in I felt like there were information about the characters and story that I should have known prior to reading the book. It just felt like I was missing something. As if the first chapter was a continuation of a previous book. Perhaps if the author had included a prologue leading into the characters and the situations then it would have been more fluid.
However, once I got past the confusing beginning the story picked up quickly. I was immediately drawn into the lives of the characters and the story. Julia, the main heroine definitely has her quirks but she is also vulnerable yet strong, sarcastic yet sensitive, and unwilling to blossom into something more powerful than the rest of her friends. John, the main hero has a certain sweetness to him that Julia doesn't want to accept or see. I really liked John because he seemed very genuine and sure of himself but when it came to Julia he was a bundle of nerves. There was an innocent quality to him that was probably what made John and Julia a great pair as they were both a bit insecure in a world where they were considered outcasts.
There's also a bit of a mystery going on throughout the story and you wonder what is exactly going on with these teens and the powers that they have. The cliffhanger isn't shocking but it definitely leads into another book in the series.
I really did enjoy the story and most of the characters but it would have been nice if the author had described more of how the characters developed their powers. And at first I was confused by the time frame of the story. It seemed like it would be a futuristic, dystopian type of world but it turned out the story took place in our current time which could also have been better explained in detail.
Overall, Select is a good book to read about teenagers developing first loves, navigating through the tedious threads of teenhood, and discovering "superhuman" powers in a world that's like our own but not quite.

Select was a wish come true for me , not only because my wish for an advanced copy was granted on NetGalley , but also because I was growing tired of shallow YA novels and I needed something to renew my faith in this genre. Select is exactly was I was looking for: the perfect combination between sci-fi and YA literature. What makes this novel really outstanding is that even if you removed the sci-fi part, it would still be a very interesting book to read on real life situations which many young adults can relate to.


We are all special in one way or another, Julia Jaynes is special in many ways. However, the things that make her an appealing character are not her unusual abilities but her human flaws. She longs for being part of a loving family instead of an isolated member of an apparently perfect one.She longs for love and for friendship. John Ford is her wish come true, a strong male character who loves her the way she truly is. With John she learns that there is a world of possibilities away from her life in a golden cage. They both feel strongly attracted to each other but it is not insta-love but something deeper that has to do with human evolution .

This novel is mainly about the choices we all have to make: accepting who we really are ,who we want to be with, deciding how far we are willing to go in order to survive and coming to terms with the idea that we just cannot have it all and that we may have to let go of some people on the way .

Marit Wiesenberg has written a gripping novel that will attract many readers. I just cannot wait for more . I strongly recommend this books to all fans of YA novels, you won't regret reading it!

Thanks to NetGalley for this amazing book!

So once I got into this book it was like I couldn’t stop reading. Every time there was a break in my day I would pull out my phone so I could continue the story. Not only was this book interesting, it also had an interesting romance that was realistic. I will say that the beginning of this book is a little bit slow but once you get passed the 50-page mark it really picks up. Most of this review will be spoiler free but the last paragraph will have spoilers (but I will make it obvious).

So the main family group in this book makes the main character's family seem cultish. Especially her father but I won’t say too much about him because I liked reading about him and forming my own opinions about him. I will say that he is a major ass hat and I would defiantly do what the main character does in the end. Her father is kind of a creep and I was expecting something to happen (which it thankfully didn’t). There was also a lot of secrets going around which made the entire cult theory I had more plausible.

I really liked reading about the main character, though. To me, she was someone that I could relate to and I understood the things she was doing and why she was doing them. The only thing I couldn’t get is how she continuously forgave her father and stepmother. I get that that is all she’s known but it has to get old sometime right? I understood why she kept most of the secrets that she did and I really liked that she didn’t use any of her “abilities” in a negative light. But to be honest, I would have understood that as well. I will mention here that there is a love interest and a little itty bitty love triangle. The triangle is put down pretty quickly and I personally loved the main love interest. He was great and he wasn’t completely unrealistic like some love interests in YA books.

I will defiantly recommend this to my friends once this book hits the shelves and they can buy it. I think this book would be perfect for anyone that loves fantasy and young adult! This book has very little adult content and so almost anyone who reads YA would be fine reading this (in my opinion)!

Spoilers in the next two paragraphs:

Oh, my gosh the ending. I am so happy that they ended up together but when he had the vision I was so ready to keep reading but obviously, I couldn’t because that was the end of the book. I liked the fact that the book naturally closes but with the cliffhanger, there is room for the story to naturally continue. I love books that do this because it doesn't eat away at me if I never finish the book series. This is becoming a series and because I read this book so far before the rest of the series comes out, I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it. But that's all right because this book was amazing on its own and I’m content with the ending I got just from this book.

I was also really happy that the main character got away from her toxic father and was able to live however she wanted. I was also really surprised to find that they had left her money and the rest of the property that the “group” had owned. I would have thought they would leave her with nothing after she made the decisions that she did.

Twilight like(no vampires, just super humans)-plot was interesting and original, The book had me guessing what would happen next(not what I thought would happen). I did feel that there was a insta-love relationship with John and Julia, so if you aren't into that kind of thing, then I would pass on this book.

I honestly was not expecting for my wish to be granted to read this book. Still I had to requested because it sounded amazing and it was something that didn't sound like anything I've read before.

And it was fantastic, when my wish was granted I was super excited and I dived right into it! The plot was fantastic, the whole idea of being different in a group of differents was a refreshing idea and it was done right. There was a chance for this story to be completely wrong and go south, but Weisenberg did it right.

I love every single part of the story, the twists and turns and I hated a lot of characters, but Novak was the worst of them all, I seriously hated that guy from the moment he was introduced. I honestly don't know how the story is going to continue because it has the worst cliffhanger. When I first read the last line I honestly thought I was missing a few pages or something, but no. There was no more lines and I honestly died a little. I need to know what happens next!!!

Love the story, love the book, cannot wait for book two, because there has to be a book number two.

Select was a super interesting, fast paced read. Essentially, it had a lot of the same elements of Twilight (no vampires, just super evolved humans) but the twist was fascinating and well done-- Wiesenberg is a skilled writer, she kept me wanting to know more about these evolved people until the very end.
Wiesenberg also did an awesome job of withholding and giving information throughout her plot, causing so much tension and suspense and mystery of what would happen, and then moving in a direction I didn't expect! (Well done!)
She did such a great job of building up to the relationship between John and Julia, while leaving us with an unexpected twist at the end. No spoilers, but it is so much more than a relationship!
In general, I'm not a fan of tons of curse words in YA. In Select, I thought it was unnecessary. It made the characters sound older, less intelligent/superior, and less in control (than they were supposed to be).

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this book, it has an original plot and will keep readers absorbed with thrilling revelations and developments. I can't wait for the next book in the series or more books by this author.