Star Rating

We already reviewed and loved Eleanor the Unseen by Johnny Worthen. This should be the next young adult series you read.

I gave Celeste The Unseen 5 stars. Eleanor’s story continues to thrill in this second installment to the series.

From start to finish, this book passed the stay up late test. I started just before midnight thinking to read myself to sleep and had to force myself to stop reading at 4:00 AM and finish the following evening.

The meeting with Celeste held intrigue and Eleanor’s social situation made the book so real to life that I almost didn’t consider this book a sci-fi or fantasy, yet it is.

Book Details

Celeste The Unseen by Johnny Worthen is 376 pages. Jolly Fish Press published it on June 1, 2015. It is a young adult novel approved for ages 12 and up.

The novel’s premise

A girl of 16 is no longer a wallflower, no longer unseen, as she desperately hopes to be. What is being seen going to cost her?

 

Editing

Quality: High

 

When I read the first eBook (Eleanor the Unseen), I highlighted a dozen typos and formatting issues. I contacted the publisher due to the low quality. The publisher responded that they fixed them all with a post release update; which means we at Sci-fi Fantasy Readers contributed to the higher quality of the first eBook.

I expected the same in  this eBook but it did not happen. I usually find just less than one typo per 100 pages from the biggest publishing houses. In 370+ pages, I found two, indicating this book was published with a higher quality that you would expect.

The quality publishing of this book makes it a candidate for our Certificate of Quality.

Imagination and Uniqueness

This 2nd book can’t be unique as it is a second book in the series, right? Wrong. Despite knowing what I was getting into after reading book 1, the story still felt fresh and new.

The character’s history, the social situations, the complexity of trying to remain unseen yet be forced into an unexpected popularity creates a unique juxtaposition that pulls the reader forward in the story without a desire to put the book down.

Having read a lot of good first books in a series, I don’t always follow-up with the series unless it is too compelling not to, as this book was.

Characters

Eleanor is now sixteen, and though wanting to stay ignored by her peers in a small town with a small K through 12 school, popularity hits her unexpectedly. Her attempts to hide in plain sight are thwarted and she must deal with impending fear of what will happen when she is seen.

David Venn is her boyfriend, and with Tabitha now passed, his mother steps in to provide guardianship. But the situation is precarious and cannot last. When will she suffer the consequences of failing to be unseen?

There were numerous side characters that were surprising flushed out without any boring info dumps on them. Every character had depth, something that is quite hard to accomplish with primarily one point of view character.

Magic System (fantasy) / Real Science (Science Fiction)

It is pretty much magical realism done well. One person is special in the entire novel. The world is 100% normal. The setting is a small town in Wyoming. The specialty follows scientific rules. Laws of matter and mass, and one could argue that this was just nature fiction not sci-fi or fantasy.

eBook Quality

Quality: High

I found zero eBook quality issue in this book. That is impressive.

 

Parental Guide

Profanity: There was very minor swearing. No extreme words.
Sexuality: There is little more than teenage hormones.
Violence: Their is a an abusive man. A violent scene in a trailer. final scene involves guns and a man is shot and killed.

About the Author

Johnny (Tie Dye) Worthen is also the author of Eleanor the Unseen and Beatresyl. He graduated with a B.A. in English, minor in Classics and a Master’s in American Studies from the University of Utah. His novels have a very realistic feel. He lives in Sandy, Utah and enjoys spending time with his boys.