Hunting Lila by Sarah Alderson

Amazon Summary: "17-year-old Lila has two secrets she's prepared to take to the grave. The first is that she can move things just by looking at them. The second is that she's been in love with her brother's best friend, Alex, since forever. After a mugging exposes her unique ability, Lila decides to run to the only people she can trust - her brother and Alex. They live in Southern California where they work for a secret organisation called The Unit, and Lila discovers that the two of them are hunting down the men who murdered her mother five years before. And that they've found them. In a world where nothing and no one is quite as they seem, Lila quickly realises that she is not alone - there are others out there just like her - people with special powers -and her mother's killer is one of them…"

Hummm... It's kind of difficult for me to form an opinion on this one. It's definitely interesting--in the beginning at least--but at the same time it doesn't quite feel like a very new idea. I haven't spent an excessive amount of time reading stuff about people with psychic powers, but I've certainly heard of them and this whole secret-organization-that-hunts-down-people-with-special-powers thing reeks of unoriginality. But at the same time, I haven't actually read anything like it. For all its attempts to be unpredictable and despite the fact that I didn't quite see the twist coming, I still wasn't surprised. I saw another review that describes it perfectly--convenient. The twist is just too convenient and I had trouble believing the book because of it, which also kept me from becoming at all emotionally attached to the characters. A good story usually makes you feel something for the characters and this just didn't do it for me.

Another thing that bothered me was the lack of explanation. We aren't told how Lila gets her powers (though I suspect that is revealed in the sequel) and the extent of her power is unclear, leaving me wondering why she didn't do certain things that seemed very obvious to me. I did enjoy the book even with its flaws but it just seemed a little off. I may or may not read the sequel.