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The Party #1
Ascent
For three teens going back to the past is the only way to save the future.After years of recession a new political party is ascending to power. To control the United States they must offer leaders people will vote for. The Party has chosen a select group of teens to attend the Institute for Youth Development (IYD) for training to become the nation’s next leaders. But no one has a perfect past and in a world where every moment is captured on film it has become increasingly difficult to find future politicians. Everyone has something from their past they wish they could change. Matt wants to go back and change the night he drove drunk and ended the life of his girlfriend and best friend; Farrah-Kate, the daughter of America’s most tragic actress, wants to save her movie star mother; and Rick is ordered to go back and change the night he hacked the governments computers. Marvin Winn, a casino billionaire and Party founder has funded a device that will take the chosen back in time to alter their past. But not everyone is attending the Institute because they want to join The Party. And while everyone returns to their past, one person will choose not to come back, putting everything The Party seeks to achieve at risk.
199 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 8, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 6, 2012
This was pretty much a waste of time. Maybe it would appeal to someone who actually *was* a junior in highschool, like these characters are, but otherwise.. eh. The *idea* for the book had promise, but it never delivers. The characters are flat and annoying, with the exception of one of them who is flat but at least sort of interesting, and the plot just sort of sputters out; I do understand there is a sequel and so they book was left sputtering out on purpose but it certainly wasn't done in a way to make me at all interested in reading the next book.
The typos and grammar errors got annoying and the flaws in logic and just plain flawed facts (i.e., where a hard drive is located on a computer) were REALLY annoying. I am able to cut some slack for holes in reasoning when a story deals with time travel because, well, it's time travel but the holes in the story were completely nonsensical even for a nonsensical situation. If you know what I mean.
The upside to reading it was that I actually went to bed early the night I started it and took a nap the following day, instead of being consumed with finishing it! Oh, and I'm going to give it an extra star for the potential it had -- I *did* want to find out where it was going, however painful the getting there started to be as the book neared its end.
I would not recommend.
The typos and grammar errors got annoying and the flaws in logic and just plain flawed facts (i.e., where a hard drive is located on a computer) were REALLY annoying. I am able to cut some slack for holes in reasoning when a story deals with time travel because, well, it's time travel but the holes in the story were completely nonsensical even for a nonsensical situation. If you know what I mean.
The upside to reading it was that I actually went to bed early the night I started it and took a nap the following day, instead of being consumed with finishing it! Oh, and I'm going to give it an extra star for the potential it had -- I *did* want to find out where it was going, however painful the getting there started to be as the book neared its end.
I would not recommend.
October 20, 2011
"Ascent" was ok. Not more and not less. I bought this book because I thought it was interesting to see how exactly a political party like "The Party" could come to power, and how the different people would react to that.
Unfortunately, "Ascent" deals mainly with three teens and their individual problems. I didn't care for any of them.
There was Farrah-Kate, the child of some actress who killed herself. She was whiny, boring and annoying, talking the whole time about her mother and watching her movies. Just how obsessed can she be? Her mother's been dead for like 10 years and she still watches the movies every day? That's really sick and she should go see a shrink about it.
Then there was Matt. All-American Matt. And that's about all you could say about him, because he didn't have a character outside of being All-American. He bored me to death with his ramblings about how bad he felt about driving drunk and killing his girlfriend and wanting to change his past.
The last main character was Rick. Crazy, nerdy Rick. He was pretty much the only reason why I finished the book. He actually had a character. He was both smart and arrogant and he actually had a goal in life. And that was probably the big difference between him and the other two: he wasn't just living in the past and whining for what felt like forever.
I liked Rick, I hated the others.
The book had other issues, as well. In the beginning, I had rather high hopes on "Ascent" being a good novel. It wasn't. The first 80% of the novel were like a mammoth Prologue for the actual novel. There was a massive build-up, and then, nothing. I was really disappointed when I finished this book and thought that all of this could have been written in three chapters and then move on to the real story.
Then there were the plot holes. In the beginning of the novel it was mentioned that 15 young adults would be attending IYD. In the end, only 5 of them ever appeared. Rick (the nerd), Farrah-Kate(the actress), Matt (All-American athlete), Shannon (know-it-all) and Casey (I don't remember what her function was. Oh wait, she wasn't necessary at all!) who talked to Farrah from time to time.
The other ten were just ignored.
And maybe that was a good thing because they would have been just as boring as Matt and Farrah.
I gave this book two stars for the potential it had. I don't think I'll read the sequel.
Unfortunately, "Ascent" deals mainly with three teens and their individual problems. I didn't care for any of them.
There was Farrah-Kate, the child of some actress who killed herself. She was whiny, boring and annoying, talking the whole time about her mother and watching her movies. Just how obsessed can she be? Her mother's been dead for like 10 years and she still watches the movies every day? That's really sick and she should go see a shrink about it.
Then there was Matt. All-American Matt. And that's about all you could say about him, because he didn't have a character outside of being All-American. He bored me to death with his ramblings about how bad he felt about driving drunk and killing his girlfriend and wanting to change his past.
The last main character was Rick. Crazy, nerdy Rick. He was pretty much the only reason why I finished the book. He actually had a character. He was both smart and arrogant and he actually had a goal in life. And that was probably the big difference between him and the other two: he wasn't just living in the past and whining for what felt like forever.
I liked Rick, I hated the others.
The book had other issues, as well. In the beginning, I had rather high hopes on "Ascent" being a good novel. It wasn't. The first 80% of the novel were like a mammoth Prologue for the actual novel. There was a massive build-up, and then, nothing. I was really disappointed when I finished this book and thought that all of this could have been written in three chapters and then move on to the real story.
Then there were the plot holes. In the beginning of the novel it was mentioned that 15 young adults would be attending IYD. In the end, only 5 of them ever appeared. Rick (the nerd), Farrah-Kate(the actress), Matt (All-American athlete), Shannon (know-it-all) and Casey (I don't remember what her function was. Oh wait, she wasn't necessary at all!) who talked to Farrah from time to time.
The other ten were just ignored.
And maybe that was a good thing because they would have been just as boring as Matt and Farrah.
I gave this book two stars for the potential it had. I don't think I'll read the sequel.
November 21, 2011
Ascent tells the story of three special teens and their journey through time--literally. With the invention of the Slider, Rick--a computer geek/hacker, Farrah-Kate--daughter of the late movie star, and Matt--all-American football senior have the oppurtunity to fix their mistakes in order to progress with The Party, which is the last political party standing.
Wow. This book blew my mind. It's time-travel after all. But with it being my first time-travel book, I don't know all of the "rules" of how a book like that is supposed to be written. But it was cool. Though I didn't identify with any of the characters (because, gee, I'm not a skilled hacker, a daughter of a movie star, or a football player), I still cared about their stories. I loved Farrah-Kate's story, I was really rooting for her to get to her mom in time (not gonna say why). I felt sorry for Matt and his accident. I found Rick very enigmatic--not entirely sure what I think of him. 'Nerd' is an understatement. He's borderline 'evil genius'.
Who would I recommend this to? Hmmm...It's marked as YA, I think. I would think that fits. A few swear words and swang (swear and slang; let me know if it catches on), but other than that it's fine. Some mentioning of drinking and parties, so just be wary of that.
I think I may need to find some more Amy Kinzer--she's done a marvelous job.
Wow. This book blew my mind. It's time-travel after all. But with it being my first time-travel book, I don't know all of the "rules" of how a book like that is supposed to be written. But it was cool. Though I didn't identify with any of the characters (because, gee, I'm not a skilled hacker, a daughter of a movie star, or a football player), I still cared about their stories. I loved Farrah-Kate's story, I was really rooting for her to get to her mom in time (not gonna say why). I felt sorry for Matt and his accident. I found Rick very enigmatic--not entirely sure what I think of him. 'Nerd' is an understatement. He's borderline 'evil genius'.
Who would I recommend this to? Hmmm...It's marked as YA, I think. I would think that fits. A few swear words and swang (swear and slang; let me know if it catches on), but other than that it's fine. Some mentioning of drinking and parties, so just be wary of that.
I think I may need to find some more Amy Kinzer--she's done a marvelous job.
February 2, 2013
Had this been given to a good editor as a manuscript, it might have been considerably better. There were a ton of typos and grammatical errors that an editor would have corrected, and that seriously detracted from the reading. The characters all read the same, even using the exact same descriptions (sometimes the exact same phrases!) to describe certain things. There was no depth to them at all. In fact, if I didn't read the character's name whose POV marks each chapter, I was never able to tell whose head I was in until they started whining about their particular trauma.
The entire thing was so repetitive I just started skimming at about the 35% mark. So many of those chapters could have been cut completely because they added nothing to the story except more of the same whining and reinforcing --yet again-- why they joined the Party.
This book had an over-inflated sense of its own specialness as a story. It is not worth spreading out over multiple books. If Ascent had been tightened into four well-written, cohesive chapters with good pacing, it would have been a fantastic lead-in for the real story. Instead, it was boring and juvenile.
I won't be reading the sequel.
The entire thing was so repetitive I just started skimming at about the 35% mark. So many of those chapters could have been cut completely because they added nothing to the story except more of the same whining and reinforcing --yet again-- why they joined the Party.
This book had an over-inflated sense of its own specialness as a story. It is not worth spreading out over multiple books. If Ascent had been tightened into four well-written, cohesive chapters with good pacing, it would have been a fantastic lead-in for the real story. Instead, it was boring and juvenile.
I won't be reading the sequel.
March 14, 2017
I've had this on my Kindle for a couple years, so I figured it was finally time to give it a whirl. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would based on the summary. The book is read through the POVs of three characters--Farrah, Matt, and Rick. Oftentimes, characters sound the same; authors have difficulty really setting them apart. That wasn't the case here. They were all easily identifiable, especially Rick.
The premise of the book is very original. While the plot of 'a new political party gradually takes over the country, imposing more and more restrictions on people' isn't, in itself, very original, the details definitely are. I've never read a book in which time travel was used by an organization to further its agenda. I thought it was carried out fairly well. It's YA, so it wasn't too in depth, but that's fine by me. The character development was spot on. By the end of it, we knew Farrah, Matt, and Rick very well.
I'd love to continue on in the series, but sadly, it seems as if the author has abandoned it with the most recent comment about it being from 2012, in which she said she would be releasing the next book that year.
The premise of the book is very original. While the plot of 'a new political party gradually takes over the country, imposing more and more restrictions on people' isn't, in itself, very original, the details definitely are. I've never read a book in which time travel was used by an organization to further its agenda. I thought it was carried out fairly well. It's YA, so it wasn't too in depth, but that's fine by me. The character development was spot on. By the end of it, we knew Farrah, Matt, and Rick very well.
I'd love to continue on in the series, but sadly, it seems as if the author has abandoned it with the most recent comment about it being from 2012, in which she said she would be releasing the next book that year.
not-finishing
January 5, 2013I'm not finishing this book for a couple of reasons. Firstly it has the classic flaw of (most) self published books - distracting typos that any copy editor should catch.
Secondly the time line. It's obvious in the beginning that it is supposed to take place in the near future - in a world where people don't remember Farrah Fawcett (except the character who is named after her) and where people don't care about movie stars or watch old tech like DVD's. Where it falls apart for me is that the Farrah-Kate character's mother died in 2002 - then she mentions later that she was 8 when her mother died - if she's 18 now - which I'm assuming - that means the book takes place in 2012. Where people still remember Farrah Fawcett and watch DVDs. Even if she's 20 that books the book in 2014.
Once I realized that I found the discrepancy too distracting to continue.
Secondly the time line. It's obvious in the beginning that it is supposed to take place in the near future - in a world where people don't remember Farrah Fawcett (except the character who is named after her) and where people don't care about movie stars or watch old tech like DVD's. Where it falls apart for me is that the Farrah-Kate character's mother died in 2002 - then she mentions later that she was 8 when her mother died - if she's 18 now - which I'm assuming - that means the book takes place in 2012. Where people still remember Farrah Fawcett and watch DVDs. Even if she's 20 that books the book in 2014.
Once I realized that I found the discrepancy too distracting to continue.
February 10, 2016
It was ok. Good character development and great idea for a story but it didn't grab me. What's scary is that parts of it could happen like the Party taking over and all. I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it but for me it just didn't pull me in like other books have. I will probably end up reading the next book just to find out what happens. I'm rooting for Matt.
January 7, 2012
This started off like it would be really great because I like time travel, but then the alien element was added, and it seemed out of place. It seemed like it went fast but it was like the author was stalling, and the end left a lot of questions. I know the trend is to write a series, but a complete book would be nice, without trying to lure us into buying the next one.
February 1, 2012
3.5 stars. Really interesting idea, but some really big holes in the time traveling concept. Also, by the end of the book I still have no idea what is really going on with the world at large, the riots, how the party plays into it... It felt like more of a prologue than a book with how few details are included as to the overall plot.
July 24, 2012
Interesting! I quite liked the story and will be curious to see what happens with the rest of the series. There were some weird errors that stuck out to me -- "carbon monoxide" instead of "carbon dioxide", "allusive" instead of "elusive"... But hey, why quibble? It was a good story and a fun, quick read.
January 22, 2012
The concept of time-travel is fascinating, and this book reads like a screenplay and reminds me of Quantum Leap. I could really see it as amazing TV series, but again it's way too short, and there is no information about a possible continuation of the series. Overall, thumbs up.
November 26, 2011
I didn't expect much from this book after downloading it for less than a dollar in the Kindle store - but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a bit repetitive and had some spelling errors but I liked it a lot.
December 8, 2011
I did not finish this book. It felt like a bunch of short stories. I am sure if I continued to read, it would all eventually come together; however, I felt no connection to any of the characters and thus not compelled to continue on.
February 7, 2012
I really liked this book. It is a little more political, which usually isn't my favorite, but it's not symbolic or hard to understand. It's a fun and interesting read. I can't wait for the next one to come out!
December 3, 2011
Great story. This book has a little sci-fi in it, but it was done well and believably. I'm looking forward to reading the next installment!
December 29, 2011
I think the story had potential, but didn't quite reach it. It felt too forced, and too much like a collection of short stories.
August 19, 2012
seemed like a really long prologue with semi-resolution for the characters
January 5, 2014
I really, really liked this original story and I can't wait to get my hands on the next one!
March 21, 2014
Left behind with a twist
can't wait to see what happens next. Will Matt and Rick expose the party? what do little green men and big foot have to do with politics.
can't wait to see what happens next. Will Matt and Rick expose the party? what do little green men and big foot have to do with politics.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews