Banished~ Sophie Littlefield Review

Enjoyment: ☺☼

Plot: ☺☺☼

Characters: ☺☺

Setting: ☺☼

Overall: ☺☺

**Advanced Reader Copy**

DeLacorte Press

Publication: October 12, 2010

Pages: 293

I backed away,  but I didn't want to. There was something inside me, some roiling force, that was making my fingers itch to touch Milla, that was sending the blood in my veins surging through my body with hot insistence. I wanted--no, I needed--to help, to put my hands on Milla, and even as I realized how bizarre my impulse was, I had to fight not to act on it.

There isn't much worth living for in Gypsum, Missouri--or Trashtown, as the rich kids call the run-down neighborhood where sixteen-year-old Hailey Tarbell lives. Hailey figures she'll never belong--not with the popular kids at school, not with the rejects, not even with her cruel, sickly grandmother, who deals drugs out of their basement. At least Hailey has her four-year-old foster brother, Chub. Once she turns eighteen, Hailey plans to take Chub fro Gypsum and start a new life where no one can find them.

But when a classmate is injured in gym class, Hailey discovers a gift she cannot ignore. Not only can she heal, she can bring the dying back to life. Confused by her powers, Hailey searches for answers but she only finds more questions, until a mysterious visitor shows up at Gram's house, claiming to be Hailey's aunt Prairie.

There are people who will stop at nothing to keep Hailey in Trashtown. But when Prairie saves both Hailey and Chub from armed attackers who invade Gram's house in the middle of the night, Hailey must decide where to place her trust. Will Prairie's past, and the long-buried secret that caused her to leave Gypsum years earlier, ruin them all? Because as Hailey will soon find out, their power to heal is just the beginning.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Oops! I have officially ruined the book for you. How could I have possibly done this you ask? I gave you the summary. I have to say that the summary gives away much too much about the book. That is the first few 100 pages. There is nothing new for you to find out. Which is a big reason that I did not enjoy this book.

Characterization was a huge problem for me too. Hailey is a boring character. She says a full sentence maybe a handful of times and the rest all she does is stutter a single word that does not have anything to do with the appropriate response that she should have to what people say to her.

Now lets move on to Chub. What the hell is the point of him being in the book besides to show up how incompetent Hailey is? I swear every so often, and right now how that kid was hurt by the same thing at least three times from the same thing. If you do not have a car seat and you are on the run with a small child, sit in the back with them. It made me want to scream how she continually sat in the front while the baby only had a seat belt in an out of control car. I can not see why he was there in the first place. Heck this book could have been executed without Hailey.

Also I have to say that the fact that Hailey decided to trust Prairie so fast bugged the hell out of me. Just so we can get this straight Prairie did not save Hailey and Chub from anything. All they did was run. And she is the reason that they are running in the first place. Did you know that Prairie is not her original name. It was Elizabeth. Whey the hell, if you are trying to stay under the radar and pretend that you are not from a little hicktown in the middle of nowhere, would you choose the name Prairie. That sounds like the name of a girl who has been pregnant at least three times and two of those times it was by a relative.

Next up: the bad guy. He barely has any book time and so I had absolutely no fear of him. He did not scare me whatsoever. I have yet to really understand how he is scary. The only reason that this book had a story was the fact that Prairie (hate that name) would not just tell Hailey what little she knew. The rest of the book was just them running and disguising themselves. Overall my biggest issue with this book was how boring it was.