Review: Elixir by Hilary Duff

Elixir by Hilary Duff

Genre:  Young Adult
Publisher:  Simon & Schuster
My Copy:  327 pages/hardcover
My Rating:  2.5 stars
Buy the Book:  Amazon

Summary from Goodreads:

Clea Raymond lives an extraordinary life. The daughter of renowned surgeon and a prominent Washington DC figure, she has been in the spotlight her entire life. Followed by the paparazzi, she resents the attention that is lavished on her for her looks alone because she has so much more to offer.

Clea Raymond has a unique gift. A proficient photographer, in all her pictures, there is little something extra, and it's not just a result of her talented eye. There is always an extra photo that she didn't take. And, as she discovered at a young age, those photos always lead to a place where some tragedy is about to occur that Clea can prevent.

Two years ago, her father disappeared while on a humanitarian mission and is presumed dead, but that doesn't stop Clea and her mother from continuing to do good throughout the world. On one such trip to Columbia, she meets Race, the guide for the trip. She feels a connection to him but cannot explain why. Was it something in their past or possibly in their past lives? Whatever has brought them together is threatening to tear them apart forever. As the mystery of her father's disappearance unravels, Clea discover that she has powers that are bigger than anything she could have anticipated.

 
My review:

I found myself wondering, like many others, how much was Hillary Duff actually involved in the writing of this novel?  Not sure.  The writing, while not terrible, had its weak points.  For example:  “I couldn’t see yet, but I could feel.  It felt like I was moving.  Quickly.  I was moving very quickly.  I was moving very quickly, but I wasn’t doing the work.”  (p.139)  There were some repetitive and goofy parts in the narrative that made me cringe.  As for the actual story, there are things I liked, things I didn’t, and things that I’m still confused about.

Without giving out any spoilers, I will say that not all parts of the story made sense to me.  I’m hoping the loose ends will be tied up and things will come together in the next book (to my knowledge, this is going to be a series), although I doubt I'll be reading it.  I wished that the author would have developed the main character, Clea, more. I don't understand why she did a lot of the things she did ~ Just didn't make any sense.

I did like that the story is about the Elixir of Life.  That was unique and interesting.  The love triangle was totally predictable, but still an interesting twist to the story and I'm not quite sure where it's headed...I was left with a lot of questions and still wondering about her father.

Lastly, I couldn’t help but feel as though I’ve read this story before…It’s reminiscent of Fallen by Lauren Kate (minus the angels), although I liked that book a lot more than this one.  I do like Hilary Duff ~ I used to love Lizzie McGuire (and, yes, I own The Lizzie McGuire Movie) and I really wanted her to hit a home run with this book, but I was disappointed.  If you're wondering about reading it, I would suggest it if you are into paranormal romance and it sounds interesting to you (and are not expecting the writing to be amazing).  It's hit-or-miss ~ I've read both good and bad reviews, it just happened to not appeal to me personally.  I really got my hopes up too high with this one after seeing some 5-star-ratings, but this came nowhere near that for me.  I give it 2.5 stars.