Pivot Point by Kasie West

Pivot Point (Pivot Point, #1) by Kasie West
Published by HarperTeen
Published on 12 February 2013
Genres: Paranormal, United States, Young Adult
Pages: 352
Format: eBook
Source: my home library
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RRP: $16.99

Knowing the outcome doesn’t always make a choice easier . . .
Addison Coleman’s life is one big “What if?” As a Searcher, whenever Addie is faced with a choice, she can look into the future and see both outcomes. It’s the ultimate insurance plan against disaster. Or so she thought. When Addie’s parents ambush her with the news of their divorce, she has to pick who she wants to live with—her father, who is leaving the paranormal compound to live among the “Norms,” or her mother, who is staying in the life Addie has always known. Addie loves her life just as it is, so her answer should be easy. One Search six weeks into the future proves it’s not.
In one potential future, Addie is adjusting to life outside the Compound as the new girl in a Norm high school where she meets Trevor, a cute, sensitive artist who understands her. In the other path, Addie is being pursued by the hottest guy in school—but she never wanted to be a quarterback’s girlfriend. When Addie’s father is asked to consult on a murder in the Compound, she’s unwittingly drawn into a dangerous game that threatens everything she holds dear. With love and loss in both lives, it all comes down to which reality she’s willing to live through . . . and who she can’t live without.

I have a problem with the fundamental plot of this book.

In this book, Addie can take a peek into two futures based on decisions she might make at any one point. It’s called Searching and is a rare paranormal gift in her paranormal community. It literally benefits and affects no one but her. She can see her future, and she can pick which one she – not steps into and then lives in from that point forward, but snaps back into her present body and then gets to live all over again and has already experienced.

My fundamental issues with this are twofold:

1:

Her choice in this book is to live with either her mother or her father when they announce a divorce. But there are never just two options. What about grandparents? What about picking neither, and emancipating herself, or running away? There are literally two options and she must pick one. She cannot possibly pick a third, not after seeing what she sees.

2:

She absolutely for some reason cannot alter the future she picks, even though she knows exactly what is going to happen and is reliving it. However, the very experience of reliving it should be altering it. She’s completely aware as she lives it – she has the choice to have her memory wiped so she can experience everything for the first time, but she chooses not to. This should change everything. But it does not.

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I thought this book would be much more Sliding Doors and much less X-Men, and that’s my bad. I’ve been anticipating reading this book for years and I never picked up that Addie is actually born and raised in a paranormal community where everyone she knows and the only world she knows is paranormal and has kind of futuristic technology. My expectations were unfortunately misguided.

I tried super hard not to let this disappoint me as half of Addies’ story took place in a tightly controlled and regulated paranormal compound where for some reason the authorities let drug dealers murder people. I also found this a little disappointing as not only are the paranormal folk gifted with individual mind powers like clairvoyance, telekinesis, and mind control, but they are also taught/tutored in various other mind powers like telepathy. The footballers also played a completely different game of football, but still competed with ‘norm’ schools. I couldn’t begin to understand that, it was like setting the Hollyhead Harpies against a basketball team. I could not bring myself to like this world, but I really did try.

The other setting was in the ‘norm’ world, where Addie, though technically gifted, was actually powerless as she lived out her Search. That meant that nothing much interesting happened except there was a cute cowboy I never really shipped her with. It was just like, they were friends until they weren’t?

Also, Addie’s friend Laila really pushed Addie and this other jerk of a guy together so hard for nearly half the book, and then when they finally started dating she was “Eww, PDA!” at least twice (I may have blocked other instances out because it was so inconsistent). Like, do you want your friend dating this guy or not?

The one thing I did like was how outside events out of reach of Addie’s Search were consistent in both settings, which I really liked.

Overall I was kind of disappointed with Pivot Point, though I honestly did try to enjoy it.

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