Ordinary

Exceptional #3

by Jess Petosa

The much anticipated third book in the Exceptional series.“I think your issue is less about localized behavior and more about human nature. I’ve seen the history books. Someone always has to be better. Someone always has to conquer.”Ally and her friends are once again leaving the comfort of home and setting their sights on the Southern City. Does it exist? Will Ally find what she is looking for?Someone will become Exceptional.Someone with die.New friends will be made.Old friends will be lost.

Genres: Dystopia, Young Adult, Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Paranormal

286 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Jess Petosa resides in Indiana with her husband, three daughters, and two miniature long-haired dachshunds. Her imaginative day dreaming led her to a career in writing dystopian and science fiction Young Adult novels. Every now and then she dabbles in romance novels as well.

You can find her on Facebook under Jess Petosa and Instagram [jesspetosa].

Reviews

[Angela Doss · Rating 5 out of 5]

From Jess Petosa's blog back in April 2013:
"As for the Exceptional series, the third book will be called Ordinary. I have the outline DONE and I've already started the first draft. When I finished Rogue, the progression into the third and final book felt easy so my ideas are flowing quickly. The other day I sat down and wrote 10,000 words. To give you an idea, an average YA adult novel is 70-100K words. My goal for a release is end of summer, beginning of fall... and I am sticking with that! I was LOVE to see AUGUST in front of the release date. :)

[Lesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a good end to a much awaited story. Parts were slow though but I did enjoy reading it. Some of the story felt left unsaid. Like the children. What had happened to them? what happened to their parents? Why were people losing their minds? Honestly i looked down and thought I was only at 80% but realized i was at 96%. So things wrapped up quickly and I wanted more information as well as just more.

[Gina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first two books, but his one lacked the same excitement and romance. I know the focus was on equality, but I was super bored. And then, bam! Fairytale ending. Also, the kindle version has typos every few pages which I found very distracting. I tried to report them all.

[Biana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think the series over all was pretty good, but I felt the last book just dragged on. One challenge after another, bad turns, loss, and then suddenly everything was okay.

Still not sure if I would recommend the series.

[Jessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This last book is the same as its title "Ordinary".

[Ashleyjo]

I've died and went to book hell. I really didn't think this series could get worse from book one, but good lawd was I wrong!

Book two, albeit horribly grammatically indecent, at least had a little better dialogue than book one, which read identical to a set of instructions to put a book case together. And, it seemed to have at least a half-ass feasible plot of a cure for the rouge. I really don't recall a book ever reading so stiff, flat, and one dimensional as book one... That is until book three.

Book three continued with the same horrid grammar; juvenile, simplistic sentence structure; boring and clipped dialogues; and horrid storytelling by the author/narrator.

All the characters had the same flat voice as the narrator. The two male MC's voices were indistinguishable brooding and clipped; the same can be said of Ally's and Marnie's Pollyanna voices.

The whole rouge plot was weak, way too simple, and was completely swallowed by the characters running around through the wilds like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off to get to a city that may or may not exist and with no real plan on what they'd do when they got there. The plot continues... Travel, death, accomplish nothing, travel, {back to rouges for a minute for that to basically resolve itself}, brood, accomplish nothing, travel, death, etc...

How convenient that someone had long been contemplating doing the right thing everywhere Ally went. Big whatever his name was conveniently had been plotting the other big whatever's demise and helped her. General had enslaved all the exceptionals {yeah, that's real likely, but I digress} but really wanted an equal society all this time.

Ally must be at the top of my list for most hated female characters ever. Why? She's irrational, selfish, naive, reckless, indecisive, etc...

She puts herself in danger constantly to be bailed out by big, strong boys that she feigns friendship with because she can't make up her feeble little mind about who or wtf she wants.

She allows herself to be naked in front of a guy she says she only wants friendship from. Then, she turns around and holds hands and bosses around the other guy who she constantly strings along with "maybes." It's an unbearable love triangle because she barely knows either of them and makes no attempt to do so... Just continues to wallow in her indecisiveness until the book gives us a happy ending.

I guess the author expected angst from readers as Ally's indecisive, ungrateful, stupid arse blames one guy for using his newly acquired, uncontrolled powers to save them all and inadvertently hurting her brother and blames the other for putting the exceptional serum in a backpack that inadvertently killed someone. Absolutely insane lines of thought from this chick. No worries, she conveniently has an epiphany eventually.

She and the plot are as Pollyanna as they come. Her mission is a naive goal of some equal world where everyone sits around singing folk songs and holding hands. Sorry, but as long as people exist with powers to kill, destroy, and control with paranormal powers, equality would be IMPOSSIBLE. The author set an impossible plot with an impossible goal because it's human nature to abuse any power, much less paranormal powers. She and the plot are awash with unrealistic, utopian ideology.

And how she goes about implementing this impossible goal is ridiculous. Yeah, let's go off, two normal girls and an injured guy, to hunt towns to sign up for my Pollyanna bs of rebuilding a country... no matter that the last town nearly killed the guys and enslaved the girls as wives. Real logical plan there, huh?

I won't get into how absurd the end is because if it was all as easy as one stupid girl riding through towns asking people to play nice, then this book could've saved me a lot of time and been three paragraphs.

The other characters were really just there to brood, use super powers, or be a puppet. So, what's to really say?!? I will say that there's no f'ing way that Luke nor Max would ever let naive, incapable Ally head off to towns, especially after the whole hanging/auction town, on her own if they loved, even liked, her. Then they just left her alive or dead in a rebel attack. F that's what I call love pssst. Of course, there's also Luke's casual, 'oh okay' reaction to Ally's, ah how do I put it, ... loss . Nah, that's not the way someone that loves ya responds to life altering shit!

I'm all for fantasy and I can buy into some 'just go with it' world building and character action(s), but the whole damn book can't be implausible to logical thought, especially when the characters are living, breathing humans.

[Amie Huffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first it seemed like it jumped around a little until I understood where it was going. She was adding in other individuals that would be important later in the story. I am really going to miss these characters. I thought this series was every bit as good as the Divergent and Hunger Games Series. It is along the same lines. Ended better than Divergent did thank goodness. I could totally see this on at the movies.

[Brandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some where between 3.5- 4 stars. I like her writing but at times it was slow going for me. Everything was wrapped up in a nice little bow.

[Skye Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite series! This was the third time that I have read them and I enjoyed them just as much as the first time.

[Spuffed · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this final book. I didn't quite like it as much as the first two books but I'll get into that later and those reasons are why this book didn't get five stars from me and at times I was thinking of going back and lowering my earlier ratings because of it but again, I'll get into that later as I kinda got over it not really.

Quick Rundown: Chick has escaped the City walls along with a motley crew not knowing that her love has been brain wiped of her existence. She goes on her journey to her "hometown" to warn them of impeding danger and their need to move to the "Southern City", discovers a huge society/town of those outside the system but are they? Along the way she discovers her true purpose which is more than she ever could have imagined.

Characterization: Top notch except for my one big issue which I'll explain at end of review. The Chick evolves and we even learn why she seemed to have no personality in the first book so if you follow my reviews, disregard that criticism and I'll try to go back and alter that. I still don't understand why she hid who she was from City Dude (her love from previous novels) but that was pretty inconsequential. All the secondary characters were also done very well and you can expect some major losses in this book which added to it's credibility for me even if devastating. I was annoyed several times with two character names: Max and Pax. There are times when they are in the same scenes and it's confusing as their names are so similar but their roles are completely opposite. It could only have been worse if two characters were named, "Ann" and "Anne". The Big Bad is dealt with and even expanded upon-- people reveal ulterior motives and they might surprise you which made them even more realistic. Some tertiary characters really pissed me off but I'll get to that at the end of this review.

Plot: Boy, sometimes you wonder if shit will get any better for this group but then there are times when you expect shit to hit the fan and it doesn't so it wasn't completely miserable. The ride ends up being exhausting and the ending is fairly good but didn't fill me with as much warmth as I needed for such a rough ride. The last couple chapters/epilogue weren't written as well as the rest of the book so that was disappointing. Still worth the read.

Issues That Had Me Pissed Off and Wanting to Shame the Author:

1. "For White People Only": As I mentioned in my reviews on the previous books in the series, we are in a situation placed 150 years in the future after a genetic engineering project goes wrong resulting in human division between Exceptionals and Ordinaries and it's often mentioned how the Ordinaries have held on to the ways of their grandfathers but there is a COMPLETE elimination of religion or god. I believe that i put this down to the author's lack of wanting to muddle the plot or the inability of incorporating such a complex element into the storyline which is a shame as it would have made the book more complex and intelligent.

I'm ashamed to admit that it only occurred to me in this book that there are no black people in any of this series, nor anyone of latin decent (though I suppose one could argue that latino's became part of the melting pot). This bothered me so much upon realization. One reason why, could be because the enemy species were green/gray in color as opposed to everyone else who was white. So....does this mean that anyone who's not white is the animalistic enemy? Can the author be so deliberately racist? Or is this another instance where the author was unable to make anything more complex? That doesn't seem so plausible as the plot and characters were so well done, that I don't see a lack of intelligence. My last guess is that the author lives in a lily-white world so it just never occurred to her and I'm assuming this is the reason. I live in Memphis, TN and 60% of the population is black and I recall while traveling in my youth and young adulthood how uncomfortable I was locations where there were no black people. It felt very "off" to me and I felt a distinct difference between myself and the locals- even being a white girl myself. But I still understood that there are different areas of our country where black people are numerically the minority. But the main "City" is Chicago and there is no lack of African Americans there). Maybe if I was African American, I would have noticed this sooner than the third book (and I'm ashamed that I didn't) but I can't see how black people could not have easily been incorporated into this book. In 150 years, how did the country go to zero black people? I was uncomfortable with this and I think the author needs to take this into consideration when writing future novels involving the whole United States. I get it if it's just a single town or two but we're talking about our whole country and only 150 years in the future (if I remember correctly). The author could have thrown in a couple black people wether they were Exceptionals or Ordinaries and I would have been satisfied but there was nothing here but lily white (evolved people) and green (carnivorous evil people) so what does that lead one to think?

2. "The Stereotypical Backwards Southern White Hicks": Somewhere just north of Dallas (southern Oklahoma? Western Louisiana?), the group unfortunately comes across a grossly severe interpretation of the Southern Hick 150 years in the future. Their women are completely subjugated. All the men are named (yes, all of them) Big Sal, Big Earl, Big Dean, etc. They are prone to selling women off and hanging of any male who is not like them. Really? Was this necessary? If the intent was to offend the lower half of the US, then way to go- job accomplished. But since black people are also nonexistent, could anyone expect anything else? Again, it seems the author has no knowledge of black people or southern people. Black people would never disappear and Southern people do not make slaves of their women, nor live in filth or hang people. Did this happen in the past? Sure but that was 80 years ago, not 150 years in the future. This stereotype was complete with grossly distorted southern accents and characteristics. Completely pissed off.

Overall: This series completely held my interest and was a good read. However, I found myself so offended because of above reasons (1 and 2, both) that I will probably never read this author again. I don't mean to be hateful to the author but I'm so offended as a human of the lack of ethnicity and the hateful stereotypes in this series that I don't have any high expectations from future novels by this author.

-Spuffed

[Frankie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book follows two sets of characters in parallel to tell one story of hope and cooperation with many setbacks sprinkled along their path.

[Adam Mahler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great ending

I loved how the ending of this book came naturally. It wasn't rushed in the last few chapters but resolved itself slowly and perfectly.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is a perfect description of this novel - it is ordinary.

I really enjoyed the earlier books in the series and wanted to see where the story went from there, and of course, who Ally chooses! In this novel, Ally, Luke, Max, and their crew must complete the journey to the southern city. Despite the comforts of the city of Champagne, Ally is eager to find the people of her settlement and to determine if the southern city really exists. She will take her friends on a trip that will risk and may even end their lives for this journey.

Two new characters are introduced in this novel - Marnie - an exceptional who serves the ordinaries in the southern city and an Ordinary guard who is looks after Marnie. The southern city is neat in that it's the opposite of the northern cities with the Ordinaries in control.

Ally leads her friends through many unnecessary risks in this novel in ways that are not always well planned out and some of which result in tragedy. Ally doesn't seem to grow much as a character in this book and appears less secure and strong than in the past novels. Her main goals are laudable - to build a world where everyone works together and where peace and good communication are established. However, realizing the goal does seem somewhat unrealistic with the tools at her disposal. I think it's a good book for the younger generation who may be inspired by her far reaching goals, but the delivery of those goals could have been better done.

I think the book fluctuates between areas where it felt like there was a struggle to find new things to write about and an ending which seemed rushed. Overall I was glad to see how the story ended, but it wasn't the exciting ending that I had hoped for after the exciting start to this series.

I listened to the audio version of this novel which was excellent. The narration was very clear and easy to listen to. This would be a good family car trip kind of story since it's appropriate for teens and adults a like. Overall the series was enjoyable.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review can also be found at: Between the Pages

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Hmmmmm, well I was excited for this to finally come out, and I read it in a day and half...mainly because I wanted to see what happened with Luke, Ally and Max, have to say I was happy with that resolution. I wanted to give this a 5, but stuck with a four because there were parts of the book that I did not think were that great. We were introduced to a new character, whose point of view we were given throughout the book, the only reason that I was ok with it was that it brought us to a new place, and we got to see a little about how other exceptional and ordinary’s lived.

Marnie is the new exceptional that we are introduced to, and it happens as soon as you start the book. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about Marnie, but I actually liked her as the book went on. I was glad she was not brought in to become a rival for Ally where Luke was concerned, because yes throughout this book I still rooted for Luke and Ally.

The adventure that they took us on as the group left Champagne and headed to the Southern City was made even better with the addition of Luke accompanying them. This gave Luke and Ally, at least a chance to be around them and try and resolve their issues, however, Max was going as well. Seeing Ally mad at Luke made it worth him having to squirm a little.

What I really liked about this was that Jess Petosa didn't just make Ally forgive Luke, she had to battle her feelings for both Luke and Max, and when the resolution came, it came after the changes that Ally, Luke and the group, now including Marnie and her guard Evan, were trying to make in the world.

The ending was great, it ended with a happy note, and left me happy that it was all tied up and there were no loose ends. I’ll leave my review there as to not add anything that will give away too much about what happens in the story.

[MSL · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great ending to the series. Idealistic & hopeful.

I really enjoyed the book, and the entire series. It has a bit of everything; dystopian future, chaos, romance, betrayal, redemption, hope. It's suitable and of interest to all readers YA through adults.

I only really have one negative comment.. a issue permeating the entire series. All 3 books need to be (re?) edited for grammar and incorrect word usage. (Ex: phased vs. fazed). If this problem didn't exist I'd give every book a 5 because of the concept, storyline, characters... but it did exist, and it will irritate some readers like myself. (Author, PLEASE take note!)

If you like dystopian stories, read the series. It's great. Complex and interesting characters make you want to follow them. The plot is never certain- which keeps it interesting. The series ended well, but it did wrap up rather quickly after a long journey- a bit too quickly, given the attention to details in the rest if the book and series. I would love to see what happens to them or perhaps their descendents in a follow up book someday!

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this series but I only gave this book 3 stars because I think the ending was rushed. The book ended and I think there was so much potential to either just write a few more chapters or a whole other book but instead it was summed up in a short epilogue. I just read the three books and was waiting for it to all come together and it was done solely in the epilogue. Totally disappointed. You spend three books watching the pieces come together and the final pieces are all thrown together in the epilogue... You have all these ideas about where the characters can go.. And find out what will happen with their relationships and if their ideas will grow and if they will accomplish it all... And it takes a Quick epilogue for it to all happen??! Ugh.

[Rebecca Dehart Ellis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story and I like the characters. I was greatly disappointed by the ending. There was a lot of buildup and then it was like the author decided she needed to finish so she could be done with it. I did like that the ending wasn't perfect though. I will not be recommending this to anyone until I know for sure that the author has had it properly edited. (I can recommend a good freelance editor.) There was a chapter that was so badly edited that it might as well have been missing for all the information it provided. Because of the disappointing ending and the bad editing I had to give it only 3 stars.

[Rebekah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was totally anti-climactic. For some reason I absolutely LOVED the first book, Exceptional (probably because I was like thirteen I think when it came out), but this one just totally didn't do it for me. Maybe my taste in books has changed. Or maybe the author just lost her touch.

There was nothing special about this book. It was totally predictable. The writing was bland. The plot was old. I really just didn't like it. I skipped a ton of chapters and it didn't make any difference in the rest of the book.

You will probably love this only if you are 12

[Iri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this series. I liked how the author ended the book, it was a happy ending besides a terrible loss of a friend and the loss of Ally's leg. But on the bright side Ally and Luke are madly in love, got married and they are having a baby! You got to love that. Besides the losses in the book, the only thing that bothered me was that I preferred Luke's view on things over that of the new character Marnie. But I got over it at the end and enjoyed the book.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book fell flat for me. The first two were much more interesting. This one was a little too convenient. They get out of scrapes by sheer luck and the epilogue was a little too nicely wrapped up. The typos were still there, though not as bad as the first book, and the dialogue was borderline monologues at times. If this book didn't give closure to many of the story lines, I would have given it one star. I had such high hopes for this book.

[SARAH · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good conclusion to a great series. I did get a little annoyed with Ally's self-centered attitude. A good leader counsels with the people she loves and trusts. A good leader does not unilaterally decide what needs to be done and force it down everyone's throats by being so unmoving that she acts like a complete brat.

But, the rest was good.

[Elham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing

Loved it. Someone will die and it will break your heart, but guess what? It kinda turns out ok. Reminds me of the Hunger Games *spoiler for who didn't read the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins* like how Prim dies. Its HORRIBLE but and depressing. Well in this book, this person dies, BUT it ends in a happy ending, and its a perfectly written Happily Ever After.

[Michelle Hubbard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good ending to a good series! I read it on my Kindle and there were LOTS of typos etc. which may have happened when transferred to the digital version. It was irksome, but not enough to stop reading it. I loved this series and with a little more polish I probably would have given it 5 stars across the board.

[Stefanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect read!

After the first book I was in love with Luke and Ally .... I couldn't put them down...all three books kept me guessing what was going to happen next. You will fall in love with all the characters ,especially the exceptionals.... this last book wrapped up the series and kept you on your toes and then made everything perfect in the end!

[Vicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I am glad this finally came out, and I did like the direction the ending took, most of this one felt more fluffy and light than the other two - less action and intrigue and adventure. The last third felt too easy and unrealistic. But, overall, a good end to a good series.

[Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this though the night so I'm torn about giving it 5 stars. She is so good at chapter endings, I just can't put them down. But I liked the second book so much better and the only way to show that was to give this one 4 stars. :)

[Stacy Chamoun · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this whole series. The third book was not a good as the first two but I think it was a good ending to the series. If you like dystopian books then you should read this series. You will fall in love with this story and the characters.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt it was good, but there were random plot points thrown out there and nothing was done with the information. it would have been better if she would have expanded on these more or just left them out and built on the main story.

[Jdm74aol.com · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great ending

I enjoyed this series. I loved the storyline and characters. Ally is a strong and independent heroine. I like that she is her own hero so to speak. I was glad that some of the characters were redeemed in this book.

[Rochelle Tiche · Rating 2 out of 5]

Umm, where's the ending?

SPOILERS





There's chaos, a main character dies, then someone loses a leg, and then, what's this? Someone gets married? All that in the last 5 chapter. Could've made another book and it would have been so much better. Disappointed