I picked this up because I had read The Leaving, and had really liked it. This one was good too, but it left me wanting a little more.

Kaylee is not a very likable character but I found myself sympathizing with her a lot. She is a little stuck-up and mean in her own way. She doesn’t say a lot of what she thinks that is mean, except to close friends, so that is good. But still she thinks it, like her nicknames for the girls in school. She also kind of has this wall around her and doesn’t really let any one in, not even her friends. She has kept the secret of her birth mother from them, and she claims that this was because she didn’t think about her and didn’t think it was important, until this podcast came about. I’m not sure I believe her. She dreams about her brother sometimes and I think she thought about the telekinesis part of her mom’s story a lot. Kaylee is a dark character who is very self-centered and somewhat oblivious to others feelings as well. Also, the whole issue of telekinesis has her wondering, what if she could really make things happen.

Kaylee has two very good friends, Aiden and Chiara. I’m not sure why they are friends with her as she doesn’t treat them very nicely most of the time. Aiden is supposedly in love with her, but I found him to be distant and not very supportive of her. I think he was just tired of the way she treated him, and I couldn’t blame him. Her crush, Bennett, was also a bit of a jerk most of the time. He did come around to being a slightly better person toward the end, and was somewhat helpful to Kaylee as well. Chiara was the nicest character of the three, I really liked her and she tried to be supportive, even when Kaylee was pushing her away.

Liana, the woman doing the podcast, wasn’t a very likable character either. She was pushy and manipulative and often twisted things to her advantage. In the end though I think she was doing what she did for the right reasons, and she did prove helpful to Kaylee.

The plot on the whole was very well done. The formatting was a little off putting at times though. There were times when Kaylee was reading articles about her mom or telekinesis that were cut off in the middle. She would sort of summarize the rest, but sometimes it was in the middle of a sentence which annoyed me. You were constantly questioning along with Kaylee about whether or not she or her mom had telekinesis and if her mom had really killed her brother. Even at the end I was still wondering about Kaylee and her abilities.

As I reread through this review it doesn’t sound like I enjoyed the book. But I really did. I found it hard to put down, I found the whole mystery side of it very interesting and the way they handled Crystal at the end was great. I enjoyed the themes of how our histories makes us who we are, even when we are not necessarily conscience of it. I just would have liked some characters that were more likable.

I expected a lot more, but the author tried too hard to infuse her characters with intense emotions, by describing them in painful detail instead of showing them.

*SPOILER*

The final stunt Kaylee pulls in the courtroom wasn't remotely credible: you will never get away with staging a fake telekinesis show in a courtroom-- security? anywhere? It was so ridiculous I had to reread it a couple of times to convince myself that yes, an author really thought that crap would fly. And absolutely pointless, too: Kaylee was supposed to prove she had no powers, not pretend that she did.

Edit: I came back to add that the cover art is probably--nay, definitely, the best I've seen in a very long time.

An intriguing book about family, friends and trust. Kaylee learns through that people are not always who they seem to be.

This author's previous book, The Leaving, was so compelling I immediately requested The Possible when I saw it on NetGalley. The cover is beautiful and the mention of telekinesis really caught my attention. Is Crystal's claim of telekinesis a hoax? Does Kaylee have telekinetic powers? A few twists caused me to change my mind several times throughout the book. And I loved the idea of a granny pod.

Although Kaylee's best friends are likable, level-headed teens, I didn't care much for her character at all - which isn't a deal breaker for me - but I wondered why her friends stuck around. She undergoes a change by the end of the book, but for the better part of the story, I found myself searching for some characteristic to warrant the loyalty of her friends. The gradual building of the climax kept me hooked, but the events really require a heavy suspension of disbelief.

The Possible didn't grab me like The Leaving, but I'd recommend this book to readers fascinated by unexplained events and the questionable effects and reliability of media coverage.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital ARC.

Tara Altebrando's The Possible is an engaging read with several red herrings I completly bought into. The story of Kaylee's growth was well-developed, and while the resolution of the story was a bit tidy, I will definitely have a market for it in my school library. Definite purchase.

First, let me say how fantastic this cover is! It's very eye catching for one (and if I didn't enjoy the authors work I would have picked it up solely because of this beautiful cover). HOWEVER, I do love the author work and I found the plot to be just as cool as this cover!

Tara Altebrando has the unique ability to bring together a unique story line with concepts that are not normally used (for instance, telekinesis is the main plot point of this story- something we don't normally see). This was the same for her debut novel, The Leaving (which I LOVED). So I personally believe that Tara is going to be setting the way for some uniqueness in the storytelling world. YAY!!!!

Overall, I found this book to be extremely interesting and I loved the entire concept. I also enjoyed the characters as a whole which is a good thing because sometimes the plot stands out more then they do which brings down the enjoyment of the whole story. This of course wasn't the case with The Possible and I think it's going to be a major hit come release month!

tl;dr: I loved the idea of this, and the plot itself was great from start to finish. The main character, on the other hand, was almost unbearable. An unlikable protagonist isn't a deal breaker for me, but she wasn't an anti-hero or complicated; she was shallow, selfish, kind of naive despite thinking she was cynical, and for the first two thirds of the book, literally mean about everyone except for the popular boy she has a crush on, "just because she does" and the effect is terrible. While she did experience some emotional growth, it was far too late. Add in some weird pacing and an overused stylistic device that went from being effective to trite to annoying AF, and there was just no saving it. Which sucks, because the plot and premise was <i>so good</i>. I feel like if it was heavily edited, keeping the plot mostly in place and changing the narrative style, it could be a fantastic book, but unfortunately, we're stuck with Kaylee .

I love Tara Altebrando, I read her book The Leaving and couldn’t put it down until I was done so when the chance to check this out came up I jumped at it and just like before was not disappointed by her writing.

I read The Possible in one sitting as I couldn’t stop turning pages of this thrilling mystery. I felt the plot was unique, intriguing and who doesn’t want to dive into the topic of telekinesis. Plus you’ll be taken in by the suspenseful twists and surprises as you’re quickly turning pages to figure out where you fall on the belief of supernatural powers.

The text messages, podcasts, flashbacks trying to get a handle on the topic of bullying and other contemporary aspects will appeal to teens as Altebrando did a great job making this relatable to them.