Review: Significance (#1) by Shelly Crane

Title: Significance (#1)

Author: Shelly Crane

Published: July 6, 2011

Pages: 238

Series: yes ('Accordance', 'Defiance', and "Indepedence" follow)

Source: purchased

Amazon Summary: Maggie is a seventeen year old girl who’s had a bad year. She was smart and on track but then her mom left, her dad is depressed, she’s graduating, barely, and her boyfriend of almost three years dumped her for a college football schalorship. Lately she thinks life is all about hanging on by a thread and is gripping tight with everything she has. Then she meets Caleb. She saves his life and instantly knows there’s something about him that’s intriguing but she is supposed to be on her way to a date with his cousin. But things change when they touch, sparks ignite. Literally. They imprint with each other and she sees their future life together flash before her eyes.

She learns that not only is she his soul mate, and can feel his heartbeat in her chest, but there is a whole other world of people with gifts and abilities that she never knew existed. She herself is experiencing supernatural changes unlike anything she’s ever felt before and she needs the touch of his skin to survive. Now, not only has her dad come out of his depression to be a father again, and a pain as well, but Caleb’s enemies know he’s imprinted and are after Maggie to stop them both from gaining their abilities and take her from him. Can Caleb save her or will they be forced to live without each other after just finding one 

nother?

**REVIEW**

‘Significance’ stood out in the bunch of vampire-angel-demon books that popped up on my recommended list on Amazon after having purchased the one supernatural book (previous review) which, for me, up until now only happens once in a full moon.

This is an intense soul mate story and even though you’re not a fan of that (which I’m not) you’ll eventually warm up to it. At first I was skeptic to the imprinting of Maggie and Caleb, it was so sudden and changed the ways of Maggie so abruptly. I didn’t like how locked in to Caleb she became (I went through a minor repetitive eye-rolling phase) and how she shot down Chad and Kyle. The argument to that is, of course, that Maggie and Caleb are soul mates but it just felt a little forced at first like there was no say in the matter.

The first half of the book focuses on Maggie and Caleb and their way of handling having imprinted and how much they crave and need each other which is a little dramatic and a lot of lovey-doveyness. Just as you’re starting to get a little tired of that the much expected action kicks in, not leaving you disappointed.

As always when a human is introduced to a supernatural world there’s a lot to learn and understand and it all easily turns into someone dumping a thick history book in front of you. But Crane totally avoided that, only providing the amount of information that was needed and makes it easy for the reader to connect the dots without adding unneccessary fuss.

I liked Maggie, she was cute and mature, handling herself extremely well but still believable when being introduced to this “new world” of soul mates and imprints and abilities. I was definitely proud of her for getting through the worst situations on her own, not being a damsel in distress.

I was a little reluctant to Caleb at first, only because Maggie needed him so desperately. But I eventually had to face it, he’s a sweetheart. Sweet and protective. And sweet again. But for someone who’s known about the meaning of soul mates his whole life, he was too jealous when it came to Maggie interacting with Kyle/Chad - it’s not like she can like them even if she wanted to and it’s not like she can ever feel like she wants to because of the imprint. Like, come on.

The Jacobson’s were such a warm and wholesome family. I actually liked Kyle, he was in-your-face in an amusing way and I just didn’t feel like he got a real chance of showing himself.

There were times when I felt like the dialogues were taking over - too much talking back and forth. And the book ended on an odd note not really leaving me satisfied nor excited about reading the sequel (‘Accordance’) which I probably won’t be picking up, but I definitely liked ‘Significance’ and it totally met my expectations.

(4/5)