Book Review ~ The Vanishing Girl

The Vanishing Girl (The Vanishing Girl #1)

by Laura Thalassa
published by Skyscape
genre: New Adult, Sci-Fi, 

**received as a free read from publisher and netGalley

Summary (Goodreads): Every night after Ember Pierce falls asleep, she disappears. She can teleport anywhere in the world—London, Paris, her crush’s bedroom—wherever her dreams lead her. Ten minutes is all she gets, and once time’s up, she returns to her bed. It's a secret she’s successfully kept for the last five years. But now someone knows.

A week after her eighteenth birthday, when frustratingly handsome Caden Hawthorne captures her, delivers her to the government, and then disappears before her eyes, Ember realizes two things: One, she is not alone. And two, people like her—teleporters—are being used as weapons.

Dragged off to a remote facility where others like her live, Ember’s forced to pair up with her former captor, Caden, to learn how to survive inside until she can escape. Only Caden’s making escape seem less and less appealing.

But even as Ember falls for the boy who got her into this mess, she knows that she is running out of time. Because the government has plans for those like her, and those plans might just cost Ember her life.

My Thoughts: I downloaded this based on the blurb alone. The idea of being able to teleport but only being able to do it for 10 minutes and only at night when you're first falling asleep was interesting.
We soon find out that this is all part of a government program that their parents made deals with in order to get help conceiving. Of course there were conditions to the help. The parents agreed to the children being forced to "serve" the government for two years once they turn eighteen.
I like Ember 90% of the time. I could have done without the whole romance or at least make Ember have a bigger problem with it than she did. She spends the whole book trying to figure out how to get away from the facility and everything the government has done to her but doesn't question her "love" for her pair (Caden). Even when she figures out that the pairs were determined when they were being created she questions it little. It just seemed to go against her personality the rest of the time. I actually liked Caden and didn't have a problem with the relationship, just the fact that Ember was okay with it too quickly.
Overall, I found this to be a mostly fun read. Government conspiracy, teleporting, doubling crossing teenagers, and mysteries abound. I didn't hate the relationship just the cause of it. The author definitely kept my attention and ended the book with enough intrigue that makes me want to read book 2.

Rating: 3.5-4 (the relationship makes me waiver on this)