Book Review: Impostor

Impostor (Slide #2) 

By: Jill Hathaway

Published By: Balzer & Bray

Publication Date: March 26, 2013

Page Count: 278

Buy it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or IndieBound

Source: Purchased by Reviewer

Audience: Young Adult - Fantasy, Mystery

This was a really quick read, full of mystery and I really enjoyed it. Impostor is the sequel to Slide, and centres on Vee Bell, a girl who most people think suffers from narcolepsy. Only Vee and her best friend, Rollins, know the truth - that Vee isn't unconscious when she has one of her episodes, she actually slides into someone else's consciousness. In Slide, Vee used this to try and solve a murder, but now she has something else to worry about, because she has been blacking out and waking up in bizarre places.

Vee comes to the conclusion that someone else has been sliding into her and controlling her actions with very concerning consequences. It is up to Vee and Rollins to piece together the mystery, and figure out where several new characters fit into it all before something really awful happens. I must say that ideally enjoyed this mystery and I felt that the pacing was spot on, in terms of the trail of breadcrumbs. I also enjoyed a number of convincing red herrings which were thrown into the mix. I found myself spending quite a while thinking about what was going on, and I moved through several theories before the surprising ending was revealed to me.

I was less enthralled by the will-they, won't-they storyline about Vee and Rollins getting together. I think that was mainly because Rollins seemed particularly dense about the effect that his constant socialising with Anna would have on Vee. He also didn't seem to trust Vee much with information about his personal life, which I think was unfair as she had essentially risked everything to tell him about her sliding. He did wise up a touch by the end, but I am yet to be convinced by that aspect of the story and I think that their interactions could be spiced up a little, as I found the romance a bit flat.

All in all though, I really enjoyed Impostor and read in in a single day, so there is a heck of a lot going for this story. It was just as good as Slide, and I am excited by the revelations at the end, and what they may hold in store for the future of this series.

Summary:

What if a killer took control of you?

Vee Bell’s gift (or curse) of “sliding”—slipping into the mind of another person and experiencing life, briefly, through his or her eyes—has been somewhat under control since she unwillingly witnessed the horrific deaths of her classmates six months ago.

But just as things are getting back to normal, Vee has a very bizarre experience: she loses consciousness and finds herself in a deserted area, at the edge of a cliff, with the broken body of the boy who took advantage of her on the rocks below.

As Vee finds herself in stranger and stranger situations with no memory of getting there, she begins to suspect that someone she knows has the ability to slide—and that this “slider” is using Vee to exact revenge on his or her enemies.