The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind

The Frost Files #1

by Jackson Ford

For Teagan Frost, sh* just got real.

Teagan Frost is having a hard time keeping it together. Sure, she's got telekinetic powers -- a skill that the government is all too happy to make use of, sending her on secret break-in missions that no ordinary human could carry out. But all she really wants to do is kick back, have a beer, and pretend she's normal for once.

But then a body turns up at the site of her last job -- murdered in a way that only someone like Teagan could have pulled off. She's got 24 hours to clear her name - and it's not just her life at stake. If she can't unravel the conspiracy in time, her hometown of Los Angeles will be in the crosshairs of an underground battle that's on the brink of exploding . . .

Full of imagination, wit, and random sh*t flying through the air, this insane adventure from an irreverent new voice will blow your tiny mind.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Mystery, Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Thriller, Adult

447 pages, Paperback

First published June 18, 2019

About the author

Jackson Ford is the author of The Frost Files series, including The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind and Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air). He may or may not be the alter ego of author Rob Boffard, but he is definitely 100% a jackass.

Reviews

[Montzalee Wittmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Girl That Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind by Jackson Ford is a book I requested from NetGalley and the review is voluntary. This book opened with a bang...here is the opening lines so you can see what I mean!

"On second thoughts, throwing myself out the window of a skyscraper may not have been the best idea.
Not because I’m going to die or anything. I’ve totally got that under control.
It wasn’t smart because I had to bring Annie Cruz with me. And Annie, it turns out, is a screamer. Her fists hammer on my back, her voice piecing my eardrums, even over the rushing air."

Now, tell me you can stop reading the book after that! Ha, no way!
This book is funny, suspenseful, fast paced, full of unexpected turns and twists that changed the plot completely, and terrifically well developed characters (even the evil ones, if you can figure out who that really is).
This is a exciting fantasy, excellent mystery, stunning thriller, and a laugh-out-loud comedy rolled together with lots of unpredictable action scenes! Loved this book so much! I can't wait for book two!
I haven't read this author's work before but I will now be a stalking fan of their books!

[Holly (The GrimDragon) · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Oh, fuck this. I'm sorry, but fuck it. Right now I'm so tired I'm not sure I can make it to the bedroom, let alone get my clothes off. Solutions to life's problems can wait."

The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind is quite the title, isn't it? It certainly drew me in! I had just.. ALL THE THOUGHTS with regards to this before starting. Why is it bleeped?! What type of shit can this person move? The blurb! X-MEN! Superheroes! Is it going to be insanely bonkers?! I hope so! I need something fun amidst all the dark and heavy and stabby and BRUTAL FUCKING SHIT I NORMALLY READ! I mean.. look how fun the cover is!

Teagan Frost is an undercover agent that has a unique ability - she is psychokinetic and can manipulate anything inorganic. She is the only one in the world with these specific powers. While working a case with her team, someone turns up dead and Teagan is the prime suspect because of the way this person died. Only someone with telekinesis could have committed this murder. Since Teagan is the one and only person known to have this power, surely it was her right? RIGHT?! Not exactly. But now Teagan has 22 hours to prove her innocence and uncover the truth.

Well, damn.

My reviews are always honest, whether you find that to be a good thing or not. It's me. Just because it wasn't my thing, doesn't mean it's not going to tick all the boxes for another person. 

This was not the outcome I was expecting. If you had asked me what my rating would be when I first started this book, I would have said it was an easy 4, for sure! But.. that's not how it turned out, unfortunately.

You know how it goes, when something is getting major buzz online. I mean.. EVERYONE is talking about it? I don't read reviews beforehand, but I couldn't help but see the positive ratings and the metaphorical flailing that was happening around this release. There is no shortage of love for this book, which is radical! I hadn't seen a single person dislike this. Yet.. here I am.

Fuck.

I was expecting a really action packed and fast-paced book but there was a repetitive and frustrating quality to this one that.. just made it hard for me to want to pick up and keep reading. Because it did start out so well, I kept hoping that there would be a turnaround. That things would start coming together. That I would suddenly click with these characters.

Reader, I didn't.

Ultimately, that was the biggest letdown for me. It features a diverse list of characters, so I was quite enthusiastic. However, they just felt like half-formed husks of what could have been. Teagan has so many of the qualities that I am drawn to in a protagonist. Flawed, sarcastic, fiery, foul-mouthed, somewhat of a loner.. Teagan is a character I should have LOVED. Instead, I found her more than a little irritating. Her narrative ended up grinding on my nerves and I welcomed the slight reprieve when we switched to Jake's POV throughout.

Los Angeles provided a decent backdrop, but the story wasn't especially unique or memorable. Between the lack of character connection, cringey dialogue and a stale plot that didn't hold any suspense.. I struggled. I often found my mind wandering.

It just didn't come together for me, but YMMV!

PS. I'm even more curious now as to who the author is behind the Jackson Ford pseudonym!

(Thanks to Orbit Books for sending me a copy!)

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing beats this title. I requested this pretty much only because of it.

That being said, I read it with an open mind and expected a bunch of snark to go with my telekinesis. The trick to this kind of genre book is not to expect anything outright original but think of it as a great way of telling a fun story.

And for the most part, it is. It's not about science. It's about running a snarky mystery novel with all the heisty action, running, fighting, and reveals that keep our MC alive. You know, with the law and the bad guys both after her and all of it under a time limit. Fun... and slightly forgettable.

Which is a shame because I really LOVE the title! And perhaps I've been spoiled with some truly bonkers snark by Chuck Wendig, so this stuff is not all that breathtaking. It's average. Amusing. And let's face it, it'll probably sell. :)

After all, it has ONE HELL OF A TITLE. :)

[Kristina Coop-a-Loop · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind by Jackson Ford continues my unfortunate run of bad luck in fiction reading choices. It sounds funny and fluffy with a good plot, a book I will like. It’s not. I have very definite problems with this novel.

Teagan Frost has telekinetic ability—she can move shit with her mind. Too bad for her that this ability has caused more problems in her life than opportunities. Right now she’s living in Los Angeles, using her abilities by working in a covert government agency. By day, it’s a furniture moving company. At night, Teagan is doing shady things to stop even shadier people. It’s either this or she returns to being a scientific experiment. Things are going more or less okay until a man is found dead in a way that could only be caused by her telekinetic ability. If Teagan doesn’t want to find herself being probed and scanned by military scientists, she needs to get her shit together and find out who the real murderer is—and fast.

The first twenty-five or 50 pages are okay. Teagan is a smart ass and I found myself laughing out loud at the predicament she found herself and coworker Annie caught in. The book grabs your attention immediately and is (at least for a while) difficult to put down. Then it starts to suck. Teagan’s smart-assery eventually begins to wear on the nerves and I found her annoying and something of a jack ass. I also do not give a shit about her musical tastes and do not need to know the name of every song she listens to. Stop with that. I don’t like her or find her the least bit interesting—which is quite a feat considering she does have an interesting ability. But the story is so blah and the characters so cardboard thin that I didn’t have any connection to them or care what happened to them. Teagan’s coworkers don’t like her—probably because she’s such a smart ass shit head. Only Carlos is her friend. I liked the connection between them because it actually felt authentic. Of course, it’s later revealed that Carlos is really Chuy, the guy behind Jake, the evil guy who can move shit with his mind. I didn’t really see that coming, which I should have, but I put it down to not really caring enough about the story to have suspicions. When the murdered man turns up, the whole crew is more than ready to kick Teagan to the curb (not kerb) and be done with her—that’s how much they detest her. However, they decide to stick together because they are a very specific brand of covert operatives and they all either sink or swim together. This agreement to clear Teagan’s name in order to save their own collective asses somehow turns into a love fest between all the characters, a development that isn’t skillfully written, it’s just bam—all of a sudden they are all buddies who have each other’s backs no matter what. A few awkwardly sentimental moments (mainly between Annie—who really despised Teagan—and Teagan) take place. I guess I was supposed to smile to myself and coo “AWWWWWWW” but I’m a discerning bitch who prefers well-written characters and authentic emotions so I rolled my eyes and muttered, “give me a fucking break.”

There’s a romance (well, two actually) that comes out of nowhere. Teagan has friend named Nic. He’s barely present in the book but we learn that she has the feels for him and is worried about him and omg—the relationship drama. Why should I care about this? The author made zero effort to portray them as a) interesting people b) a romantic couple. I don’t give a fuck if they are in looooove or not.

Evil anti-Teagan AKA Jake. The book’s chapter titles are either “Teagan” or “Jake.” This is hilarious in a bad way because 99% of the chapters are from Teagan’s point of view. Why bother with this? Jake, as the book’s main enemy, is less than exciting. He engages in very long info dumps about himself, how he met Chuy, where he’s going…giant eye roll. None of this information is interesting or makes Jake a complex character. His motivation for doing his bad things is fairly straightforward and mundane, somewhat pathetic, really. Jake is like a sullen teenager. He’s exasperating, tedious, and you want to send him to his room so he can contemplate what a dipshit he is. And what was the point of him if he dies? All this build-up about his mysterious origins and his tragic back story…who cares? I mean, I don’t care anyway, but I really don’t care if he’s dead. Of course, he could still be alive but I don’t care. I won’t read the next book.

The plot is very thin. Not a whole lot happens in these 400+ pages. I started skimming because I just didn’t care. The writing is okay enough; the author can write coherent sentences, but because the characters are so flimsy I can’t be bothered to care about them. But it is funny that despite all the running around and appearances by the MS-13 and government/military goons and helicopters and the LA fire, the characters all basically end up right back where they were. Literally, back at the same place. Sooo….what was the point of this novel? Nothing changes, except two members of the crew are in LOOOOOVE and hey, now they’ve all discovered (due to plot requirements) that they all do love each other and really love Teagan, her smart-ass mouth and all. Barf.

One thing that specifically pissed me off about this book is the fact that author is British. Normally, I wouldn’t care. Actually, I don’t care that he (assuming Jackson Ford is a he since it is a pseudonym) is British. But I do care that in both the acknowledgements and the author profile (both written in Teagan’s smart ass annoying voice), the author admits to never having been to LA even though he based this novel (and probably the second one) in LA. I could have even let that go except for these two facts I find egregious: a) the author via Teagan lectures the reader about how badly LA (and possibly the USA) treats its homeless population and b) the British spelling and phrases used throughout the book.

First, the lecturing: “It is total bullshit that the city’s attempts to fix things have nothing to do with actually rehousing these people or taking care of them, but just taking advantage of the low rents to move in people they deem more respectable. Start-ups and hipsters and hacker spaces. Do I sound preachy? Am I making you uncomfortable? Deal with it” (119). This theme makes a reappearance: “I still don’t have the first clue how to fix Skid Row—how to help the hundreds of people living in tents in the middle of one of the richest cities on the planet. But treating them like human beings is probably a good start” (418). Is this situation shitty? Yes, it is. But having an author be sanctimonious via his character’s voice pisses me off, particularly when this particular author has never even been to Los Angeles to see the situation for himself. If he can’t be bothered to fucking travel to LA to do research for this novel, then he should keep his lecturing to himself.

Second, in the acknowledgments, Teagan AKA the author basically says he knows the book is full of “hilarious” spelling mistakes that were “mostly” corrected by Hugh Davis (editor?) but he doesn’t give a shit about any remaining errors: “OK, look, dude, seriously, correcting the word ‘dumpster’ to ‘skip’ so it ‘doesn’t confuse British audiences’ [who the hell is he quoting?] is ridiculous. Like I give a shit!” (448). Yeah, well, Hugh Davis did a shit job of correcting the spelling errors because the book is riddled with them. And, Teagan AKA Jackson Ford, it’s not about confusing your stupid brain-dead American audience with British words and spellings. It’s the fact that Teagan is supposed to be AMERICAN living in AMERICA. Not the UK. So why the fuck would she say, “Oh, I’m going to throw my garbage in the skip?” She wouldn’t. She also wouldn’t say “aircon” (wtf?!) instead of A/C or “fire brigade” for fire fighters/firemen/fire trucks. It’s about attention to detail and being authentic which I see you know nothing about—nor do you care. Tyres, foetus, kerb, “our�� instead of “or,” “c” and “s” instead of “k” or “z”—the British spellings are everywhere. An author who gave a shit could have changed this. A half-way decent editor could have very easily using Word’s “find and replace” tool. Hell, even Fifty Shades of Grey editors and publisher did a better job of editing a book written by a Brit based in America in a city she’d never been to. There were a few British expressions (“cookery”) but at least the spellings were American. It matters because it signifies how much of a shit the author cares about the finished book. In this case, I’d say the author gave zero shits.

I will not read the second book in the series. This one was more than enough, thank you. Suck.

[Mogsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum https://bibliosanctum.com/2019/06/24/...

A literary tour de force this was not (but I mean, you’ve probably gathered that from the title already), but still most definitely a ton of fun (again, the title). The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with her Mind by Jackson Ford is the perfect book to read for pure irreverent and action-packed escapism.

Meet Teagan Frost, a young woman who possesses incredible psychokinetic powers, something that the government is all too willing to exploit for its own purposes. Under the cover of a moving company, Teagan and the other members of her team are dispatched on various top-secret missions by their handler Tanner to deal with threats to national security.

However, things go spectacularly wrong on their latest mission, when the only way they could get away was with Teagan taking a flying leap out the window of a skyscraper with one of her freaked out teammates in tow. Only by using her PK was she able to save them both. After that fiasco was over, all Teagan wanted was to sleep for a year, but no sooner had she settled down than she was woken up by an urgent phone call demanding her return to headquarters. In a panic, Teagan arrives expecting everything to be in a state of emergency. What she did not expect was to be accused of murder, with her teammates in a fury and ready to arrest her. Back at the site of their bungled mission, it appears that the body of their original had been found, killed by a length of rebar wrapped around his neck. As far as everyone was concerned, only someone with Teagan’s powers could have done something like this, and since there’s no one else like Teagan in the world, she had to be guilty.

But Teagan knows the truth: there had to be someone else out there with PK powers, an idea that both excites her and scares her. Now she has less than 24 hours to prove her innocence, and the first step towards clearing her name is to track down the real killer.

I confess, this was a purely indulgent read for me; I wanted something fast-paced and fun that read like an action-comedy movie and The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with her Mind gave me exactly that. Despite all the comics and comic book character related references, this isn’t really a superhero novel, but it sure as hell reads a lot like one, incorporating themes like secret identities, uncanny origin stories and a super scary evil villain. Its freewheeling plot starts off running and doesn’t take a break for anything, so be prepared to keep up.

Fortunately, books like these are usually pretty simple and straightforward, though that being said, they don’t often give the reader anything or special too unique either, for all that they are full of humor and well-timed and engaging banter. But that’s where the characters come into the picture. Here, the narrative unfolds by alternating between following Teagan and Jake, the out-of-control PK she’s trying to track down and capture. At first, I felt that the reveal of the target so early on might have been a misstep, but my mind was quickly changed as Ford gradually allowed us to go deeper into Jake’s complicated and twisted psyche. His actions, behaviors and origins suggest a deeper mystery to be solved, adding an extra layer of intrigue to the plot. Teagan herself is also a formidable protagonist and a joy to follow, and her determination and optimism is admirable, considering the impossible challenges she must face and all the hardships she’s had to endure in the past.

To tell the truth, there’s not much left for me to say int his review, but that some books are just plain fun to read. And if fun is what you’re looking for, then The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with her Mind is the exactly kind of novel you’ll want to take to the beach or to curl up with in your favorite reading nook after a long day—the perfect blend of action, humor and sci-fi to fulfill all your needs of escapism and entertainment.

[Mel (Epic Reading) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the concept and plot but felt overall disconnected with the characters. There is a lot of humour and wit (just like the title implies) in Jackson Ford's first book of a new series called Frost Files. However it often felt like the humour was just covering up for poor character development. Jackson Ford does, however, start off very fast in the plot department. Let's get into some details:

Leading Gal
The female main character, whom the story is told through, is a bitter sarcastic, and relatively funny 22 year old. The reader is immediately given the impression that this chick is not happy about her plight in life, her 'superpower' or the current situation she finds herself in. But she's clearly quick thinking on her feet and with her wit.
To give you an idea however of why this gal feels so shallow this is one of the opening lines of her thoughts:
"...a face that still gets her ID’d at the liquor store. Even though I’ve been able to buy my own drinks like a big girl for a whole year now.”
Sure being ID'd is annoying. But if you're only one year over the age limit I don't think you get to complain. I'm 37 and in all seriousness am constantly ID'd. Both my husband and I look about 10 years younger (or more) than we are. I'd kill to have only been ID'd for one year after I turned 18 (legal age in my province). So from the get-go I knew that this was going to be a typical Millennial girl that would annoy me. And I was right.
I should mention here that there is another POV in this story but it was so lackluster that I didn't really key in on any of its moments. This book is really all about our leading gal with the power to move stuff.

Humour
Thankfully our girl who can move sh*t with her mind is capable of being fairly amusing. This line in particular had me imaging all kinds of things:
"The only thing worse than splatting onto the sidewalk would be doing it naked."
Seems fair and true! (lol) The other characters around our lead gal are equally amusing and sarcastic. Without this wit I don't think I'd have lasted. The plot is good, a bit weak in places but overall acceptable, and the concept and 'power' given to our gal is fine; but without the amusement these characters would appear as cardboard as they are unfortunately.

Plot
There is a fair bit of plot and happenings, as one would expect, when you get into a science fiction novel like Ford has provided us. The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind has the typical super power troupes you expect like having: conspiracies, destroyed childhoods, dependencies on the bad guy and the like. Take TV Shows like: The Gifted, Supergirl, Smallville, every spy show ever, and even a splash of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; and you've basically got the premise of this novel. That's okay with me I expect troupes when I read very genre geared novels and so it didn't bother me too much. The one thing I would argue is there isn't an X-Files feel here for me. This book lacks the depth X-Files had.

Overall
The saving grace of Ford's first installment, in the series Frost Files, is that the ending is strong. It's engaging and didn't feel cheap. It wasn't an 'ah-ha' or 'oh wow' moment like I prefer; but it's plausible, believable and moved me to want to read the next book.
For me a three star book isn't bad but isn't good. It's just meh. I wouldn't convince anyone to read it, or recommend it necessarily, but if someone asked me about it and was interested I wouldn't convince them to find a different novel to pick-up. My hope here is that book 2 improves and our characters are less cardboard and more flesh and bone.

To read this and more of my reviews visit my blog at Epic Reading

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

[The Tattooed Book Geek (Drew). · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always this review can also be found on my blog The Tattooed Book Geek: https://thetattooedbookgeek.wordpress...

Can I just say that the title of the book is fucking amazing!

Sometimes you just want to kick back, relax, turn off from the world and enjoy a book. You want to read a book that is full of attitude, that is bold, brash and loud. A book that is pure and unadulterated fun and that is what The Girl Who Could Move Sh#t With Her Mind is. It is a book that is barmy, bonkers and brilliant.

Teagan Frost is the only person in the world with special powers, she can wield psychokinesis, she is psychokinetic. Teagan is part of a clandestine and covert team who under the guise of a furniture removal firm work for the US government under their handler, the government intelligence operative, Tanner. The mission that they are on hits a snag, spirals out of control, turning into a snafu of chaos and all of the planning complete with the team members goes out the window, literally! The Girl Who Could Move Sh#t With Her Mind starts with the main character and narrator Teagan jumping out of the 82nd floor of a building complete with a screaming team-mate in tow. Hurtling, plummeting towards the ground…yeah shit gets real from the very first page and from then on doesn’t let up with the pedal firmly to the metal for the duration with the crazy train story driven along by the spunky and willful Teagan.

The team manage to complete the mission, but, then, later, a dead body is found in the building where the mission took place. The person has been killed in a way that makes Teagan look like she is responsible. That’s when things really start to go south for Teagan and the team. Teagan didn’t do it, but, it looks like she did and there is no proof that she didn’t. In fact, as she is the only person in the world with superpowers, the only person who is known to have psychokinesis, she is the prime suspect, the only suspect.

Teagan works for Tanner and in exchange, Tanner keeps Teagan free, keeps her safe, out of the roving eyes and hands of those in the US government who want to experiment on her. With the murder, with it bearing the hallmarks of someone who has psychokinetic powers and if Teagan doesn’t succeed in proving her innocence then Tanner will have no choice but to bring her in and hand her over to the scientists. If Teagan can’t uncover the truth then she will end up on an operating table in a government black-site with scientists cutting her open and experimenting on her to find out why she is different, why she has powers. Teagan is adamant that she didn’t do it, that she is innocent and the team are given twenty-two hours against the backdrop of an ever-encroaching wildfire that is threatening Los Angeles to clear her name, to unravel the mystery, to prove Teagan’s innocence, to find whoever did murder the victim and uncover the truth. With how the victim died it also means that Teagan is not alone, that there is someone else out there like her, someone else with powers who is roaming the streets of LA.

As a character, there is a depth to Teagan, her gift is part of her, it is part of who she is, she is comfortable with it but she is also alone. She is different, she is the only one with special powers, she is unique. Until the murder that could only have been committed by someone with psychokinetic powers she had thought that she was alone, the only person in the world who had special powers, it is something that she has lived with, that loneliness of being the only one and now, she finds that she isn’t alone and that there is someone out there just like her, someone who could understand her, relate to her but this someone looks to have travelled down a dark path.

As well as Teagan there are also chapters that focus on a character called Jake. Jake is part of the vast homeless network in LA, barely managing to get by. For years Jake has been searching for information about his past but every time he thinks that he has found a lead, the trail goes cold, nothing but dead ends and disappointment. Then, a man named Chuy shows an interest in him, reaches out and offers Jake a deal. In exchange for Jake doing a job for him, he will provide Jake with what he wants most in the world, what he has been looking for, searching for, answers to the questions that plague Jake, who is he, who was his real mother and where did he come from.

Teagan’s chapters are told in the first-person perspective, Jake’s, the third as The Girl Who Could Move Sh#t With Her Mind is very much Teagan’s tale, it is her origin story and to a lesser extent that of her team too. You’ll root for Teagan. She is blunt, funky, foul-mouthed, spiky, sarcastic, a bit of a wiseass and a fantastic narrator. She is also a connoisseur of food with aspirations of opening a restaurant and her taste in music is rather dubious!

Teagan’s power isn’t limitless and it has its limits. She can’t move heavy or massive objects, she can’t move organic material and her power only works over a short distance too. Using her power physically drains her, leaves her tired and in need of food to replenish the energy that her power expends. If she pushes herself too far, expends herself too much she is unable to use her power, she’s not an all-powerful superhero type with a bottomless well of power to draw upon, she’s just a normal person who happens to have a special power.

To go along with Teagan The Girl Who Could Move Sh#t With Her Mind has a vibrant mix of eclectic characters all with their own personalities, some big, some more muted but all who jump out of the pages and all of who add to the story being told.

Teagan has her own history and backstory, how she got her special ability and how she ended up working for Tanner. Likewise, all the members of the team have their own story, history reason as to how and why they have ended up working for Tanner too. The team’s cover is a furniture removal company and occasionally, the team do actually go out and do removal jobs. Hey, it helps them to look legitimate and it helps them to keep their cover in place.

The team are a diverse and dysfunctional bunch, prone to arguing, bickering and infighting, they get the jobs that they are sent on done but mostly, they aren’t friends and they don’t spend time together outside of work. There are exceptions, Teagan gets on really well with the driver of the team, Carlos but the others, not so much. Over the course of the book, as the story progresses and, as they (for some) somewhat reluctantly aid Teagan, through hardship, through struggle bonds are formed and you get to see them come together, see the animosity between them fade and see that regardless of where they came from that they have each other’s backs.

The story is a wild ride and the pages go by in a blur, it is fast-paced, full of heart, deep in places, has some surprises along the way, twists and turns and includes a lot of action and a whole lot of random stuff flying through the air. The writing by Ford easily flows, pops, sizzles, includes a few pop culture references and is brimming with humour and emotion.

The Girl Who Can Move Sh#t With Her Mind is like a shot of adrenaline to the system and I fucking loved it. Luckily, it is the first book in a series and I’m really pleased to know that there will be more books featuring Teagan, her team and that will be filled with technicolour mayhem and crazy stories.

[Liz Barnsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is seriously the most fun you’ll have with a book this year.
Meet Teagan. She really can move sh** with just her mind but it doesn’t make her invincible and she’s all caught up in shadowy government affairs and a battle with her own past….
This is a fast moving, high octane thrill ride interspersed with calmer moments as we learn more about what has lead Teagan to this point. Jackson Ford creates an eclectic and engaging cast with an intriguing group dynamic that absorbs you into their quirky LA setting with ease. Then we are off, with stuff flying through the air, cat and mouse chases through the city streets, hidden enemies and a whole truck load of trouble.
I loved it, first page to last. The writing is totally rock and roll, edgy and clever, with classically placed twists and turns and more full on action than you can shake a stick at. Definitely a must read for fans of frickin’ awesome stuff. Don’t miss it.
Highly Recommended.

[OutlawPoet]

First thing I need to admit: I wanted this because of the title. Seriously, the title told me the book should be just plain fun…and it was!

Now, I wasn’t sure at first. It started out like a heist novel and those aren’t my thing. But soon enough, it turned into so much more. And props to the author: every time I had a little thing that bugged me, the author addressed it and made everything okay.

The characters are awesome – even one who completely shocked and disappointed me. The author sprinkles some surprises and some absolute shocks through the story. One shocking reveal had my mouth literally dropping. I just sat there, completely stunned.

This appears to be first in a series and there’s a little loose end that I MUST find out about. I’m in. Bring on book 2!

*ARC Provided via Net Galley

[Fiona Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some jobs, you need a black-ops team and a fleet of Apache choppers with heat-seeking missiles. For others, you need a psychokinetic with a music-hating support team who can make a lot less noise and get things done in a fraction of the time. You need a completely deniable group of civilians who can do stuff that even a special forces soldier would struggle with. That's us. We a re fast, quiet, effective and deadly.
Go ahead; make the fart joke. Tanner didn't laugh when I made it either.

The first in the series has a phenomenal title, a heroine who grew on me, and an ending that promises a series going in all sorts of interesting directions. Things started slightly rough - I wasn't sure I was going to like Teagan, as she starts with that almost too badass vibe, trying slightly too hard. But she settles down as the story goes on, and as she gelled better with her team and lost the almost posturing toughness, she turned out to be actually interesting.

I would like to get a bit more of the behind the scenes interactions of the group in the next one - some of that was sacrificed to keep the plot moving in this book, and I understand why, but missed it all the same. Some of the emotional punches would have hit a little harder if we'd had just a bit more time to really get to love everyone - as it stands, Annie's honestly the one who's interested me the most so far.

All in all, a good start, an entertaining story in its own right, and characters I want to keep getting to know. Great way to kick off a new series!

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'm going to be honest with this - the title and cover for this book totally reeled me in. Luckily for me, the story behind it totally lived up to the hype I'd built up for it in my head. Anyway, the story is totally nuts but in the best ways. It's fast-paced, off-the-wall, action-packed, and a ton of fun.
Seriously, you won't get bored with Jackson Ford's debut novel (well, Ford is actually the pseudonym of a bestselling sci-fi author) because it's a real roller coaster. As for the characters, they're all pretty great but Tegan is my favorite - and yes she lives up to that title and she's still quite relatable. Sometimes the novel's trying to do a little too much, but overall I loved the superhero movie-esque spectacle of the whole thing. If you love high octane, incredibly visual stories, with an engaging cast, you'll want to read The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind by Jackson Ford. I'm looking forward to seeing more from Ford (and I hope to learn his true identity in the future).

[K.J. Charles]

DNF at 27%, just not landing for me in any way and the narrator is profoundly unlikeable. Might reread Turbulence instead.

[Jypsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a feeling The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind would be fun to read, and I was right. It's something I haven't read before, and I was drawn straight into the story from the start. Teagan is a unique heroine with abilities to move things with her mind. She's obliged to work with the government, unfortunately. She's accompanied by an unconventional motley crew who work with her. Teagan is funny, brash, totally unique and likeable in a delightful kind of way. I liked the dialogue, word choice and narrative structure of the story. I read it quickly. This story was everything I hoped it would be. Even if you don't think it's for you, give this one a try. Definitely different and fun! Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

[liv ʚɞ · Rating 3 out of 5]

’The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their history’

My relationship with The Girl Who Could Move Shit With Her Mind (which I will henceforth in this review be calling ‘Shit Mind’, because the title is too long and I have the sense of humour of a prepubescent boy) is a tumultuous one.

I, like I imagine a whole bunch of other people, was drawn to this book based on its title, and then stayed for its synopsis. A telekinetic working in LA as a government operative with a ragtag band of other misfits as they take down crime? What an awesome premise. But unfortunately, what a mediocre execution.

Shit Mind has all the tools at its disposal to be brilliant, and I know a lot of people think it is. And while I totally get why some people love this series, I just couldn’t. Maybe I was setting too high expectations or just didn’t know what I was getting into, but this isn’t an in-depth literary masterpiece, it’s a silly superhero book that compares itself to the X-Files. It’s writing is acceptable, character work okay, pacing decent. It is in no way offensive, but also did not stand out for me at all, despite its awesome premise.

I found the main character Teagan to be mostly okay, at times slightly cringe. She is most certainly a victim of ‘female character written by a man’ and was consistently reminded of Jim Butcher’s female characters in the Dresden Files. And I mean EARLY Dresden Files. Ironic, seeing as this is called the Frost Files. I liked a few side characters, particularly Annie and Reggie, but I didn’t find the villain compelling in the slightest. Their complete personality 180 was so out of no where and had very little build up, I’m fairly certain it gave me whiplash. And not in a ‘ooooh look at this twist’ kind of way. In a being hit by a lorry kind of way.

However, a couple of other twists in the book were very well done and had my jaw dropping open. Were they actually unexpected and well done or am I just a moron? Who’s to say, but they were the best parts of the book for me.

Overall, Shit Mind gets 3/5 stars. I may continue on with this series if I get bored, but it’s not something I’ll be rushing to.

[Nils | nilsreviewsit · Rating 2 out of 5]

‘I take a deep breath, then another. I’ll be fine. After all, I have superpowers. I survived a fall from the top of a skyscraper with no parachute. I can sure as hell survive this.’
~

The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind is a new urban fantasy series by Jackson Ford. There has been quite a buzz surrounding this book lately, and with a title as awesome and as catchy as that, who wouldn’t be intrigued? I also saw that the book had been likened to that of the X-Men series, and as I’m a fan of superheroes, I immediately thought this book would be just my thing. However, unfortunately this one didn’t really live up to my expectations.

The story follows our main protagonist, Teagan Frost, who is an undercover agent working for the government. She is part of a small team of other secret agents who work together on black ops type of jobs. However, Teagan is different from the rest of her crew, she has a superpower, and that power is telekinesis, or PK as she liked to call it. At the beginning of the novel Teagan finds herself accused of a crime she adamantly insists she could not have committed, and with her life on the line, and her own team doubting her validity, the stakes are high to prove her innocence.

Firstly, I’d like to say, that this review is only my opinion, and it is based on my own personal preferences. So please remember that you may not feel the same, and if this is a book you’ve been looking forward to, then trust your gut and read it. We are varied readers after all, and it’s always fantastic to like and try different things.

From the beginning I found the narrative to be light, fun and easy to read. The book certainly kicks off with a bang, and the tension scale is surely set high. A book that begins with a lot of action is definitely a great way to hook a reader in! I found I was interested in the story and the whole mystery of the crime, with the usual curiosity and suspicions about who the real culprit was. This is what really held my interest throughout. I had my theories and I was invested to see if those events would play out exactly as I thought they might.

I also really appreciated the diversity of the characters, it was great to see a disabled character portrayed in a very positive light. Likewise I also welcomed the way the setting of Los Angeles was realistically illustrated throughout the novel. The city was not glamourised in the way we often associate with LA and the lifestyle there. It was shown to be an unstable place, not just because of the constant fear of wild fires, but also because of the sheer amount of poverty.

~
‘It’s bullshit that that two thousand people have to share nine, dirty, stinking public toilets. It’s bullshit that they’re forced to take down their tents every day because some Los Angeles County official decided that it looks bad to have them up.’
~

Sadly though, that is where the positives ended for me as I really couldn’t warm to the main character, Teagan. She had such a sarcastic, feisty, brash attitude to her personality, and that is something that I really took a disliking to. Even the cool scenes with her using her telekinesis abilities, didn’t make her grow on me more. Her interactions with the other characters and the dialogue between them all, were attempting to be humorous and witty, but this just didn’t work for me personally. It all felt forced and often made me cringe.

I’m a type of reader who really has to care, root for and be attached to at least some of the main characters in a book. If this fails to deliver then it’s always going to be hard for me to truly love what I’m reading. As this book is mostly told through the first person POV, and I found Teagan to be fairly irritating, I honestly struggled to be motivated to pick the book back up every time I put it down. There were some chapters that were from the character Jake’s POV, and his character did excite me more to begin with, but however that feeling didn’t last long. I’m so disappointed!

Overall, as I’ve stated, I would definitely encourage readers to try this book if you’re in the mood for a light, adventurous read and you quite fancy a main character that has a prickly personality to her. I don’t feel that I’ll be continuing the series though, as ultimately this just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to the publisher, Orbit, for this early review copy.

[The Captain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahoy there me mateys! With a title like that, ye know I had to check it out. This book stretched believability a whole bunch but I didn’t care because the story was so darn fun. A wonderful popcorn book with a heart. This book be 447 pages and flew by!

The story follows Teagan Frost who has no choice but to work for a shady government organization due to her psychokinesis in exchange for freedom on a leash. Well a simple job goes bad, then really bad when a guy is murdered, and then Teagan gets the blame. She has 22 hours to figure out who-dun-it or she goes back into government hands and maybe disappears forever.

The beginning was explosive! I was sucked right in. This book was a wonderful mess in a good way. I absolutely loved Teagan – her attitude, her soft(ish) interior, her spunk, etc. I loved that while this is very much an action-based non-stop plot, the characters are nuanced. Even the secondary ones. Watching Teagan’s relationships with them evolve is fantastic and even the reader’s perceptions of them change too. This was no mean feat when ye have so much chaos, characters running for their lives, and unexpected plot points. There be humor here too!

I loved that Teagan’s powers had limitations and side-effects. I enjoyed that both the good guys and bad guys make mistakes. This slight realism somewhat balanced out the silliness of some of the more ridiculous plot points especially involving Teagan getting the blame and her origin story. Then again who doesn’t like hellfires, gangs, secret organizations, hacking, chase scenes, a hint of romance, snark, and late-90s rap?

The climax and ending were absurd but I didn’t care too much because I am team-Teagan all the way. Book two is out in 2020 and has another excellent title, “random sh*t flying through the air.” I want it. Arrr!

Side note: Jackson Ford is a pseudonym for an author who has written 16 bestselling novels. I don’t care who really wrote it. It be fun!

Check out these reviews from the crew:

Matey Drew @ thetattooedbookgeek – “Sometimes you just want to kick back, relax, turn off from the world and enjoy a book. You want to read a book that is full of attitude, that is bold, brash and loud. A book that is pure and unadulterated fun and that is what The Girl Who Could Move Sh#t With Her Mind is. It is a book that is barmy, bonkers and brilliant.”

Matey Tammy @ books, bones,&buffy – “I knew The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind was going to be a fun read as soon as I heard the title, but I was not prepared for its over-the-top action and frenetic pacing. I also didn’t expect this story to have so much heart and emotion, which it did in spades. Jackson Ford, a pseudonym for a bestselling novelist, has written a super-charged story that starts with two women falling from the 82nd floor of a building, and never lets up after that.”

[Katie Hanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind is a fun adventure/thriller about a girl with psychokinetic powers (she can, erm, move shit with her mind. hope this helps <3) It was published in 2019 and does feel very 2010s, in both good and bad ways. It captures that classic MCU vibe which I honestly miss from the good old days when they were turning out Good Movies, with its snappy dialogue, irreverent tone, and spunky, fun-loving, yet prematurely jaded superheroine who feels like she could easily be Tony Stark's younger cousin. We've also got that slightly dystopian contemporary setting we know and love from the Marvelverse, where the government is staggeringly evil and FAR too powerful yet the narrative only sort of acknowledges this is a problem. And we've got the diverse cast which is clearly well-meant yet not necessarily well-thought-out. Like, real quick notes, your disabled Black veteran should not trust the government more than your young white protagonist does, and your only queer character should not be the surprise villain.

However, I did like the characters a lot overall, and really enjoyed the found family vibes. Didn't love the take on superhero romance (*heavily side-eyes Nic*), but maybe the ship will improve in Book 2.

[Samm | Sassenach the Book Wizard · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, the sequel being titled Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air gives me life. You don't even understand how much I appreciate these titles.

So I've never watched Alias so I cannot say much about that comparison but this definitely reminded me of a mash up of several shows but Scorpion and X-Men definitely stand out. This was quite a fast paced and a bit chaotic/mind boggling book. There wasn't much time to process what happened because something else would happen immediately after. I definitely want the next book to delve more into exactly WHAT created Teagan and the others with Gifts since we know there are others who have different abilities.

The ending alliance reveal surprised the hell out of me. It was pure chaos but I love how Teagan took that experience and made her be more up front with the people around her instead of hiding herself and her inner monologues. I was also shocked how the "romance" ended but I sort of appreciated it for not going the way most books do.

[Ric · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I saw this book browsing a bookstore, I was immediately drawn in by the title. The Girl Who Could Move Shit With Her Mind, how incredible is that? And when the summary said it was like a mystery crossed with X-Men I was hooked, but I still decided to check it out from the library instead of buying it on the spot. And I’m glad I did, because man did this book not live up to the hype. I was expecting a bit more action, but it’s a mystery so I guess I understand it focusing on the characters more. But I didn’t connect with any of the characters in this book, and it made me almost not care what happened by the end of it. It was fine, probably 2.5 stars for me but I understand why people like it.

[Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!* · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this as a very-now light pop action super-power thriller-type thing. It is at least as good as its title. I tried to get my public library to order it but it was one of the rare times they turned down my requests, so I put it on my birthday wish list and my dad got it for me. Thanks, Dad! I made sure to let him know that I enjoyed it.

The author-provided bio states that he has a dozen best-sellers under his (assuming actual male identity) belt, but this is first book by Jackson Ford as a pseudonym, and the internet does not appear to have cracked his true identity yet. Speculation puts him outside the U.S., which I agree with given some odd word usage such as "aircon" for air conditioning, which appears to be in use in the U.K. and some Asian countries. Despite likely foreignness, the author captures L.A. geography and culture quite well, and the use of California wildfires as part of the setting is very now, and a little terrifying to read given the impact of fires in Australia currently. I also liked that a love interest of the main character takes "no" as no without argument or whinging; progress is being made. I also felt that the use of mobile phones, as in where, how and when the were used and why the technology was unavailable at certain times, was the best that I have read to date. This is a personal sticking point for me in contemporary-set books, so I am grateful not to be irked by how phones were handled in the story.

Teagan Frost, main character and psychokinetic, is the only person with her abilities, to her knowledge and that of the people she works with. She works for the government under cover with a team of not-super-spies who don't exactly all get along, doing various non-lethal tasks in L.A. to ostensibly keep the world safe. She is 22 years old, and the source and limits of her special abilities is revealed gradually over the course of the novel. I liked the smart action, the verbal quipping, the character's non-work lives, and the emotional reactions. In the middle part of the novel, I could feel the author struggling to make the characters logically make the choices he needed them to make to put them where he needed them to be for the story. Just don't worry about it and enjoy the ride.

I struggle to categorize this novel, which is an unecessary exercise except for my own organizational hang-ups. It is what it is. But is what it is urban fantasy? New adult? Science fiction? Can it be a super-hero novel or do we need more powered people for that? Perhaps the inevitable sequels (Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air scheduled for release in June 2020) will help square it for me.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable, but I didn't really relate to the characters and felt a little to YA for my liking. More thoughts to come

[LordTBR · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: ★★★☆☆ (2.5+)

Synopsis

For Teagan Frost, sh*t just got real.

Teagan Frost is having a hard time keeping it together. Sure, she’s got telekinetic powers—a skill that the government is all too happy to make use of, sending her on secret break-in missions that no ordinary human could carry out. But all she really wants to do is kick back, have a beer, and pretend she’s normal for once.

But then a body turns up at the site of her last job—murdered in a way that only someone like Teagan could have pulled off. She’s got 24 hours to clear her name—and it’s not just her life at stake. If she can’t unravel the conspiracy in time, her hometown of Los Angeles will be in the crosshairs of an underground battle that’s on the brink of exploding…

Full of imagination, wit and random sh*t flying through the air, this insane adventure from an irreverent new voice will blow your tiny mind.

Review

Thanks to the publisher and author for an advanced reading copy of The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind in exchange for an honest review. Receiving this ARC did not influence my thoughts or opinions on the novel.

Seems like the new craze of putting Sh*t or F*ck in book titles won’t be going anywhere soon and TGWCMSwHM is the newest release that does just that. While a tantalizing title and over-the-top-hilarious cover reeled me in, not to mention a synopsis that sounded right up my galley (puns…) the story didn’t hook me line and sinker and I swam back off to sea.

I have seen several glowing reviews of this novel and I can see where they are coming from, but for me, it fell a little flat. This is also an instance where the blurbs let me down. Alias I sorta get, but X-Men? Nah fam. This is like watching Dark Phoenix and Cable having a beer together and shooting the sh*t, only to have cops bust in, demanding answers for a murder one of them may have committed.

While the beginning chapter gives us a glimpse into something fantastic, what with psychokinetic powers galore and falling off skyscrapers, it then slows down and became two (2) different POVs. Not that that is necessarily an issue as the timelines finally clash, but the payoff is very “meh”. Not to mention that the characters are hollow shells, unwilling to let the reader in except as an outsider seeing the pain on their faces.

Don’t get me wrong, Ford does enough right to make this book a funnish romp, what with wit, flying sh*t, and adventure, but even Teagan can get annoying as f*ck and make you want to fly toward the finale to find out how this book ends.

All in all, these are just my opinions, folks. You may love the hell out of this book, but it was just an ok read in my mind. It was an enjoyable escape from twiddling my thumbs at work, but has absolutely no staying power.

[Beth Tabler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jackson Ford's irreverent story The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind is as fun as the title suggests. Seriously, I laughed out loud a few times. My favorite protagonist type is snarky. I enjoy a good bit of snark and a well-placed quip. I also enjoy it when people lose their shit and are fed up with your antics, which is Teagan, in a nutshell. Teagan is a woman, put in ridiculous situation after ridiculous situation over 22 hours. Oh, she is also The Girl Who Can Move Sh*t With Her Mind. So the jobs she deals within this novel are... a bit out of the ordinary.
In the first chapter of the book Teagan is plummeting from the top of a skyscraper; she has ten seconds to live. Her Day gets worse from there.

Teagan is like most young women living in Los Angeles. She works a job she puts up with and has weird semi-sorta friendships with those she works. She also has an overbearing boss and big dreams.

All of these things are factually true.

Except that Teagan works for a clandestine operation founded by the government that uses her abilities, namely moving sh*t with her mind, to acquire information and stick it to the bad guys. Whomever the current bad guy is, though she never kills anyone. It is nothing like that, and she tries to do as much good as she can.

Her weird relationships are with her coworkers, who have almost as strange backstories as she does. And her boss is a terrifying governmental agent and will put her in a cage if Teagan steps out of line. A literal cage. But she does have the big dreams of owning a restaurant and eating the best food. As you can probably tell, Teagan is a cool character. Very much an average person except for that one small thing. A long time ago, Teagan got tinkered with. Something extraordinary happened; she acquired the ability to move items with her mind. Nothing huge, she isn't moving buildings. But up to three hundred pounds and ten feet from her, Teagan can reach out and grasp inorganic objects with her mind. How or why is not important, she just can. She is an X-Men character who drinks a lot of coffee and swears a lot.

"Superheroes in comics and in movies pull off that secret-identity shit all the time. But this isn't a movie, or a comic, and I am definitely not a superhero. Secret Identity? I can barely pull of the identity that I have. I won't do that to Nic. I won't put him in that situation."

As I mentioned, the story starts with a plummet off of a very tall building with a screaming coworker in her arms. Things have gone pear-shaped very quickly on a job, and the only thing Teagan could think to do was to throw them off the 82nd floor of a building and hope for the best. Her teammate has agoraphobia; this does not engender team unity between them. Most of her team considers her a strange liability. Especially the woman who is screaming in Teagan's arms because she believes she is about to die.

They survive.

But later, while Teagan is out getting some most excellent takeout, a dead body is found with a piece of rebar wrapped neatly around his neck. Using her powers in such a way is verboten. The murderer would have to be a person with telekinesis, and Teagan is the only person who has that? Right? Well, Teagan has 22 hours to find out who did it and prove her innocence, or it is back to government labs in Waco, Texas, for the rest of her days.

"The state hadn't helped. The state - states plural, actually simply didn't care. He was bounced from office to office, and the trail ran cold within weeks."

There is a compelling sense of urgency in this novel. 22 Hours feels like we are living Teagan's experiences in real-time. That sense of urgency drives the plot beats from one moment to the next. It also causes Teagan to make poor choices because, at this point, Teagan is a woman at the end of her rope. She is out of telekinetic juice, out of coffee, and out of time.

This story is told from the perspective of two people, mostly alternating chapter by chapter. We have Teagan, the main protagonist, and a harried good guy, and then we have Jake, the antagonist. Jake is, in most ways, a complete opposite of Teagan. They have similar backstories. Teagan was orphaned in her teens and was picked up by a government agency who then experimented on her for five years. Jake has power but never showed anyone. He was also orphaned, but at a much younger age. He bounced from home to home in the system until he aged out, stole a car, and left.

Where Teagan has kindness in her heart, Jake feels damaged. It is sad in a way. It feels like Jake could have been a good person, had the circumstances been different, but he is missing that moral core that guides good choices. We occasionally see it when he questions his own decisions, "Wait I don't want to kill anyone..." But he pushes through that in a singular focus on his goals. In that, I liked that Jake wasn't a cookie-cutter character. He had more dimension to him than the typical bad guy. Their two stories swirl around each other for most of the book—their actions directly affecting each other, but never quite meeting until the story unfolds.

Some of the best parts of this novel are the interactions that Teagan has with her coworkers. As much as the 22-hour time limit affects Teagan's future, it also very much affects the team as a whole. Her choices, and the information that she can find directly influences the rest of the coworkers' lives. This incentivizes them to help her as much as possible, even if she annoys the hell out of them. It isn't just Teagan who has a wild ride over the next 22-hours, it is Paul, Carlos, Annie, and Reggie who are going along with her.

"...They tased me. After that they got smarter. Kept me dosed."

The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind is fun and silly. Teagan makes stupid choices and shows her naivete, but damn, is this an engaging story. Teagan's revelations over the 22 hours allowed her character to expand and be a bit more than just action. This growth is an essential and wise choice on the part of Jackson Ford. It made this story more than action and wise-cracking. It gave it some heart, some sorrow, and a little pluck.

This is the perfect kind of book to kick back with after a long day and enjoy it. I highly recommend this because we readers want some psychokinesis fun and to cheer a character on. Teagan kicked a lot of ass, even when she was getting her ass kicked, and I am looking forward to the next book.

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fantastic title! The story's pretty good, with the action swift and plenty of sarcasm and and peril, and the idea of a government-led group that deals with terrorists and the like using Teagan Frost's unique psychokinetic ability, as well as the more normal capabilities of her colleagues. Though, as far as mystery was concerned, I figured out who the big bad was very early on, and kept wondering when the reveal would happen for the characters.
I think I'll continue on with the series, as it's a fun popcorn read.

[Alexa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t normally write reviews, however this book is just...terrible. I read 70% of the book before I decided I couldn’t take it any more. The number of grammatical errors in this book is ridiculous for a “critically acclaimed sci-fi author”. I’m not one to be the grammar police, however when it affects the story, I have an issue with that.
This is sloppy work and it’s just an insult to the reader.

[Julian Dexter · Rating 2 out of 5]

With a title like this, I couldn't resist it. I feel like I probably should've, though... The book wasn't terrible, and there were a lot of things that the author did well. However, a lot of the weaknesses of the book stood out glaringly and made it harder for me to enjoy it.

As for what the author does well:

The descriptions are amazing and really drew me in. There was solid character development and there's a lot of diversity in the cast. There's also several realistic portrayals of PTSD. The author also skillfully tied things together in interesting twists and managed to make nearly every chapter ending a cliff hanger without making it annoying (which ends up happening a lot when authors try to force their readers to keep going instead of just letting the tension continue naturally). The title is incredibly clever, and the writing is engaging and clever. The author also has a great balance of action and "rest" scenes.

That's a lot of good things, and it's probably because of what I listed above that so many of the reviews of this book are positive with high star ratings. However, there was also a lot wrong with this book. I'll only focus on the big ones or the ones that really stood out to me, though.

(To be honest, with the number of weaknesses this book has, I first thought that this had to be the author's first book, and "first book syndrome" is very real. However, the "meet the author" mentions that he's written 16 best-selling novels, which seems weird considering how rough this book is.)

Anyway...

First off: the characters. The cast is diverse and they develop wonderfully, but even by the end, most of them still feel extremely flat. Teagan is the only one who seems to be fully fleshed out by the end, but that should've been happening throughout. Also, her "voice" is all over the place. She only starts to sound like a 22-year-old woman near the end. Before that, she sounds more like a 40-year-old man. For her traits, they kinda just list them. She likes to cook and wants to be a chef, which is mentioned a lot, but she doesn't seem to have a lot of cook traits. Like she never uses skills that would be associated with being a chef in any way other than frying up a grilled cheese sandwich one time. No heightened sense of smell or taste, no knowledge of ingredients that would've helped them... Nothing. The fact she likes cooking is just repeated over and over again without any connected showing. And apparently she's obsessed enough with poetry to use references to it to come up with her name, but that interest of hers literally never comes up again the rest of the book, which is weird.

Where the character depth lacks, stereotypes take over. Carlos, for example, is both gay and Mexican. His personality (in the first half of the book, at least) can be boiled down to nearly every stereotype about gay people and Mexican people. Not to mention, the fact that the only openly queer and flamboyant person turning out to be the main "bad guy" is just reinforcing queer coding.

Additionally, the bad guy is introduced within the first 40 pages and he's instantly more likable than Teagan. By the end, Teagan is more likable, but Jake is still easy to sympathize with. A sympathetic villain is something I appreciate in books, but it seems odd to me that he's likable for more of the book than the main character. I get the feeling that the author was trying to pull something that is common in movies, where the main character will be a jerk and then change their ways and be lovable by the end. But I feel like that's easier to do in a movie where the changes start happening in less than an hour of the time spent watching the film. Meanwhile, with this book, you have to sit through 2+ hours, often spread over several days, to get to the point where Teagan starts to become tolerable, and it's not easy to keep reading that long when you hate the main character.

There's also a lack of urgency and sense of consequence in the book, as though no one cares what happens to themselves or others. At one point, Teagan spends quite some time alone in a restaurant when she could be out doing other things. She's on a 22-hour time limit, and she wasted at least one of those hours doing nothing. Also, when she loses her phone, keys, and wallet at the beginning of the story, she makes zero attempt to look for them and instead just walks off without really caring about the fate of her possessions. Later on, she forgets they were ever taken. If I was just missing one of the things that had been stolen, I would've freaked out and searched as long as I could, even with a time limit hanging over my head. And I know that the phone had to be stolen so none of them had phones later and also so Africa could call them, but they could've included a panicked scene of her looking around before Teagan gives up on them. Also, speaking of her phone needing to be stolen for later events to occur, I also noticed a pattern of things just...happening...without making much sense just so the plot would work later on. I wasn't really a fan...

As partial spoilers, the book starts to set up for a mystery/reveal/twist involving the murders, but then nothing comes of it. But there /is/ a twist. However, the writing is so full of contradictions and awkwardness that it was hard to see all the clues. Some examples of this poor writing:
-Annie says "I've got something. Let's go," but she doesn't actually have anything and no one calls her out on it.
-The author makes a point to mention how messed up Teagan looks, but Nic says nothing about her appearance when they meet up.
-Teagan's lifting limit is stated at 300 lbs, but then she lifts a chair, herself, and another woman together. The other character is described at being big and muscular. Teagan is described as being a bit on the heavier side. The average woman weighs 170 lbs.
-Jake has to be older than Teagan, but he's described as younger.
-Paul's phone somehow doesn't have caller ID, something that even a phone as old as his should have for at least contacts saved in it, like when his phone is called by Teagan's.
Because of things like these, it was easy to brush off the clues as bad writing. Carlos' full name being used out of nowhere felt super forced and awkward, but there was a clue in his full name. His personality shifts all over the place, but all the other characters have weird and shifting personalities too. He ends up using he/him pronouns for the murderer before anyone else in the group knows the other PK user is a man, but it's easy to ignore as just another inconsistency in the writing. Jake's chapters with Chuy are filled with clues, but the backstory is so tedious that they feel like they're only there to remind the reader that Jake still exists. They feel like they can just be skipped because they don't seem to further the plot. All the clues are there. They're just easy to skip over because they look like more bad writing, which shouldn't happen.

And the POV... It's first person, which implies that Teagan is telling us about everything, including what's going on in Jake's chapters. But how does she know all that stuff about Jake? Carlos/Chuy vanishes at the end and Jake dies, so there was no one who could've told her all that backstory. She can't have known anything that happened in Jake's chapters, which makes the POV confusing for me.

Also, one last thing: Why does the author seem so think that there are no tacos in Wyoming? It just seems like a weird excuse for the main character never having eaten a taco before. Teagan could have said "well, I was trapped on my family's farm all my life and then held in a government research facility, so I didn't get out much," but even then, her dad was a skilled cook and could've made her tacos whenever. Also, they keep mentioning she was held in Waco, which I'm assuming they mean the city in Texas (they never seem to clarify that), and the guards never fed her tex mex? That seems weird to me.

Overall, there were a lot of things this book did really well, but it also had a lot of flaws that made it hard to get into. I can see why other people like the book, but I'm personally not a fan.

[The Nerd Daily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published on The Nerd Daily | Review by Carolyn Percy

You think you’re having a bad day at work? All Teagan Frost wants to do is kick back and relax with a few beers, peruse her favourite restaurant and take-out menus, indulge her dream of opening her own restaurant one day, to pretend that she’s normal and so is her life. But Teagan has psychokinetic powers, exploited – sorry, “employed” – by a shady government agency, carrying out break-in missions no normal human could. Her current assignment is about to see her and her colleague take a leisurely drop out the window of an 80-odd floor skyscraper, and if that wasn’t bad enough, a body soon turns up at the same building, killed in a way that only someone with powers like Teagan’s could’ve pulled off. But Teagan is the only PK out there. Isn’t she? 24 hours is all she’s got to prove her innocence. If she can’t, it won’t only be her and her team’s lives at stake but the whole of L.A.

Reminiscent of the publication of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North (later revealed to be Carnegie-nominated Catherine Webb), Jackson Ford is a pseudonym for an author of “16 bestselling novels.” But while the author may be a mystery (for now) the book’s mission statement is clear. It hits the ground running from the very beginning – with sh*t hitting the proverbial fan as well as flying through the air – and doesn’t let up for pretty much its entire four-hundred-odd-page run.

The story is told from the point of view of two characters: Teagan, whose chapters are told in first-person, and Jake, a mysterious young man whose search for answers threatens to take him to some very dark places, whose chapters are told in the third person.

Teagan’s voice is immediately engaging, while also being dry and sarcastic—”On second thoughts, throwing myself out the window of a skyscraper may not have been the best idea. Not because I’m going to die or anything. I’ve totally got that under control. It wasn’t smart because I had to bring Annie Cruz with me. And Annie, it turns out, is a screamer.” Plus it’s also full of pop-culture references and it’s been described as a “blue-collar X-Men” and the book is aware of the similarities, with frequent references to both the franchise and the particular character of Jean Grey. And though Teagan is not without her vulnerabilities. Underneath the sarcasm is the knowledge and the sadness that her abilities mean she will never be able to lead a normal life and that it is only the tenuous goodwill of the slightly sinister Tanner—the government agent in charge of their little outfit—that’s keeping her from being locked away forever as a lab-rat, and possibly dissected to find out how her powers work, and presumably how they can be replicated.

Jake’s chapters, simply by dint of the fact they’re written in third person, are slightly more sedate, making them welcome breathers from the relentlessness of Teagan’s as well as furthering the plot. They also act as a pretty good tragic character study, with one particular revelation casting a character –who you may have thought you had the measure of –and their actions in a new light.

Teagan’s team starts out as very much not a cohesive team, rather a group of mismatched individuals who tolerate each other (to varying degrees) because they have to. During the course of the book they come together, so that by the end it feels as though this instalment is a curtain raiser onto the stage where future adventures will be set.

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The girl who can move sh*t with her mind is the story of Tegan Frost, a young woman who can move things with her mind. Tegan works for the government, although, it’s quite secretive as to what she actually does for them, even Tegan isn’t sure. But then a body is found on the site of Tegan’s last job. The man was killed in a way that the only suspect is Tegan herself and now she only has 24 hours to clear her name and work out who is framing her and why.

The book is written in mostly first person from Tegan’s point of view. But there are a few chapters that are written in third person and are from another character’s point of view. The story is fast paced and engaging, with lots of twists and turns. The chapters are also quite short, most averaged about 8 minutes on my kindle. Because of the nature of the book, there is quite a lot of violence in the book, but nothing is too graphic. There is also, as the title suggests, quite a bit of swearing.

I liked this book. I found the story really interesting, I didn’t see all the twists coming and I liked the characters. The LA setting was also interesting; I’ve never really had any interest in going there. So it was nice to read about. Tegan’s powers were also dealt with very well I thought, I liked that it had limits. For me, the book also highlighted what made us human and it touched on how we as a race treat those we deem as not human – which I liked.

I don’t think I disliked anything about the book really. The only thing I can think of is the narration, I found the first person point of view a little annoying at times. Not because of Tegan, as I’ve seen other reviewers complaining about. But because first point of view is so limiting! It got little frustrating as the book continued as there where things I wanted to know that Tegan did not know or was not privy to.

I’ll definitely be reading the next book in this series, which I think is out next year.

[Yvonne (It's All About Books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished reading: October 27th 2022

"People are stupid, things go wrong, plans fall apart. Shit doesn't work like you want it to. But there's always a way out."

I've had this title on my radar for quite some time now... There was just something about the title and blurb that clicked, and my instincts said that I would have a great time reading The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind. It took me longer than expected to actually get to it, but I can now say that my instincts weren't wrong. This book is basically completely over the top, batshit crazy and completely bonkers, but at the same time SO. MUCH. FUN. Do you ever feel like reading a story simply because of its entertainment factor, giving your brain a break and enjoying every minute of the ride? The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind is your book. Teagan makes for such a great main character, and I had a blast spending time with her and the rest of the China Shop gang. The sarcastic and at times dark humor was spot on for me, and the banter itself was excellent as well. The writing in general is definitely part of the reason why this story works so well! I could have done without Jake's POV, which was a lot less successful for me and basically the reason I knocked off a star. That said, I still loved my time with this story and I will definitely be picking up the sequel ASAP.


P.S. Find more of my reviews here.

[Runalong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meet Teagan Frost - undercover govt agent who is telekinetic and would must rather own a restaurant and listen to music - now framed for murder.

A lot of fun and some great characterisation!

Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...