Young Adult
Pages: 304
Publisher: Speak
Release Date: October 14, 2010

Ashlyn Greenfield has always known when bad things are going to happen. Each time that familiar tingling at the back of her neck begins, she knows what's to come--a trance. She's pulled in, blindsided, an unwilling witness to a horrible upcoming event. But she's never been able to stop it--not even when the vision was of her mother's fatal car accident. When soulful Jake enters Ashlyn's life, she begins having trances about another car accident. And as her trances escalate, one thing becomes clear: it's up to her to save Jake from near-certain death.

I was certainly expecting more from this book. What drew me to it was Lisa McMann's blurb about it. Many of you know I'm a huge McMann fan, so when I read the summary and Lisa's thoughts I thought I'd love it. But the thing is, I was expecting it to be a little dark and thrilling. Yet I can categorize it more with Sarah Dessen than with Lisa McMann, if you know what I mean.

With that said, the premise is very interesting, the writing was comfortable and what with being a very short read, I ended up finding it satisfying. Nothing special, though. Ashlyn is an otherwise normal girl but she has 'trances' where she sees half the future in which someone will die. Her sister sees the other half, but they've never managed to complete the puzzle on time.

Ashlyn is a very troubled, insecure and weak character. Her voice was a little frustrating sometimes because of her insecurities. Jake, on the other hand, was very confident and a wonderful character to follow, yet I feel he was not well developed. I think we could have explored Jake's character a lot more if the book was longer. I think that what bothered me somehow was the storytelling. The way Gerber decides to narrate was blurry and foggy for my taste. I kept feeling I was missing details and emotions. I kept wanting to explore more of Ashlyn's grief and Jake's problems. But none of that came.

Overall, it does relate to Lisa's Wake series because the 'trances' resemble slightly Janie's slipping into dreams' episodes, but that's about it. Trance is a superfluous reading with an interesting premise and good writing but lacks depth and character development.