Struck - Jennifer Bosworth

Synopsis: Mia Price is a lightning addict. She’s survived countless strikes, but her craving to connect to the energy in storms endangers her life and the lives of those around her. Los Angeles, where lightning rarely strikes, is one of the few places Mia feels safe from her addiction. But when an earthquake devastates the city, her haven is transformed into a minefield of chaos and danger. The beaches become massive tent cities. Downtown is a crumbling wasteland, where a traveling party moves to a different empty building each night, the revelers drawn to the destruction by a force they cannot deny. Two warring cults rise to power, and both see Mia as the key to their opposing doomsday prophecies. They believe she has a connection to the freak electrical storm that caused the quake, and to the far more devastating storm that is yet to come. Mia wants to trust the enigmatic and alluring Jeremy when he promises to protect her, but she fears he isn’t who he claims to be. In the end, the passion and power that brought them together could be their downfall. When the final disaster strikes, Mia must risk unleashing the full horror of her strength to save the people she loves, or lose everything. (From Goodreads)

I love this book, and I hate it. I'm so incredibly torn because there were elements that I thought were great, and the book was wonderful while I was reading it, but now that I sit back and I'm thinking about it - there was a lot that I really didn't like about it.

To start off on a positive note, I absolutely loved the lightning addict idea. Mia's ability to feel storms coming is way awesome. I'm a storm person, I wax poetic about rain and I think there are few better feelings the the heavy pressure of a good storm on the way. So I really connected with Mia and her incredible connection to this powerful force of nature. I also think the impending apocalypse/false prophet is timely. There are moments when the cult and the end of the world thing gets a little unbelievable, but really what do you expect from fanatics who place all their belief in one crazy man? They often do unbelievable things that make perfect sense to them, but to those on the outside it looks insane.

So here's where my love/hate line is drawn. There's the group working to counter the Prophet and his followers, but I don't really understand the way they go about doing that. They're trying to recruit Mia, because she's apparently the key to the plans of both groups. The master plan was quite implausible actually and the ending was apparent from about the first 100 pages. But still, I had a moment near the end where my mind was completely blown. I keep going back and forth because the actually plot had a lot of holes, but it was still effective in keeping me entertained and at keeping me moving along with the story.

What it comes down to is reading this book is a little like getting swept up into the movement, kind of like getting caught up in cult-like practices. When you're a part of something powerful, like an apocalyptic cult, I suppose it's easy to see everything that is wonderful about it, but after you snap out of it you realize it isn't as perfect as you thought. So, it's quite possible there's something impressive in the fact that, as a reader, you have a similar experience as Mia (minus the getting struck by lightening over and over). Needless to say, I did enjoy this book while I was reading it, I only wish it would have been more about Mia and her lightening than cult politics and end of the world fanatics.