Review: SIC

SIC by Scott Kelly
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Release Date: August 17, 2012
Buy Links:

Amazon

Book Description:

One rule: If another player taps you on the shoulder, you have to completely change your life within the next fifteen minutes. In front of everyone. Your car, your virginity, your grades, your identity – nothing is safe.

When five high school students from the wrong part of town devote their lives to playing the game David invented, they walk a line between insanity and enlightenment.

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It isn’t often that I read something and it leaves me speechless, actually that’s pretty rare. But I think it’s safe to say that [sic] by Scott Kelly blew me away. I’ll admit this isn’t my typical genre of books, I tend to stay in the paranormal romance area, but I am incredibly glad I decided to venture out into new territory.

It was the book blurb that initially drew me in and the story that unfolded in the following 208 pages was intense and original. I can honestly say I’ve never read a story like this before and the sheer concept of it fascinated and captured me. I could not put this book down. Jacob is compelling as he retells the story of David Bloom, Eureka, and the six.

While playing Eureka, six dysfunctional teens use the game to change their lives while psychoanalyzing every decision that people make and what makes a person who they are, circumstance or something else entirely. I like Jacob. I can’t help it, there is just something about the character that makes me want to reach out and be his friend.

He isn’t a bad person and he has a moral compass unlike other people in “the six”. I think the only character I wanted to slap on a regular basis was Emily and the fact that I disliked her so much shows me that Kelly has an incredible handle on all his characters. If I can feel so much about one character hate or love, it means that author, in my opinion, is an exceptional writer.

There are so many characters I could relate to, Jacob, Nora, Kent even David occasionally. I loved the way Kelly explored the inner psyche of people and the things we learn along the way from Jacob while he’s in the police station kept me riveted. Every time I thought I had the ending figured out there was a twist thrown in and when I finally did get to the end I was like, huh…well I’ll be damned.

[sic] is one of those amazing books that has you on the edge of your seat the entire way through and then when the end finally comes you’re so blown away that you sit there for a few minutes contemplating how the hell you just sat in the same place until 4:30 in the morning just to finish said book.

This is a book I will most definitely be keeping and re-reading it was that good. I’ve never really taken the time to think about how things are different for people who don’t have their basic needs met and I suppose that’s because mine have always been met so it’s hard for me to picture anyone else’s not getting met.

But [sic] is a shining example of what happens when you think you have nothing to lose. I’d recommend this book to anyone who loves stories that are different and somewhat out there. But as a paranormal romance junkie, I’ll tell you I loved this book to death, so really I think it transcends genres. If you like to read, pick this up.

“Take my offer and change now, in fifteen minutes—or wait for Emily. Throw off your burdens and put up a good chase, or let them shackle your legs so chaos can stalk you with a smile on her face. It makes no difference. Change is coming. Change is the only constant.” – Jacob, [sic]

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Author Bio:

When Scott was eleven, he was so upset by the ending of the classic story Robin Hood that he wrote his own and stuck it into the book. When he was fourteen he finished his first novel. By the time he was nineteen, he’d written four–the latest, JIMWAMBA, was published by an independent press in the United Kingdom.

Dissatisfied with the experience, he took to stealing paper from his University and selling staple-bound copies of his manuscript at local festivals and gatherings, earning him a cult following that only grew as his eBook FRIGHTENED BOY reached its thirty-thousandth reader. He is a presence in the burgeoning social writing scene as a contest judge for the website BookRix, winner of WeBook’s “Page to Fame” contest, and chart-topper/featured author on the website WattPad. Over fifty-thousand people have read one of Scott’s novels online.

Scott’s constant need to improve his writing took him through a college education in Literature. He became determined to bring what he loved about classic literature to the modern reader, in a manner they’d appreciate as something new, but with its dues paid.

Scott Kelly is the ‘fresh new voice.’ He writes daring literature that asks difficult questions about the nature of humanity, but layers it in so many delicious coatings of action, thrills, and intrigue that readers often forget they are reading novels that address delicate questions about identity, perception and death. He delights in taking complex philosophical and metaphysical themes, but breaking them down using entertaining, familiar story setups – that he then mangles in attractive ways.

Now twenty-eight, he performs intellectual property duty for a lab where experimental drugs and chemicals are concocted. But while the chemists are busy filling beakers, Scott is trying to save compelling, thought-provoking literature for a new wave of readers.

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