REVIEW: "Vivid" by Ashley Bustamante

 

About the Book:

✦ Title: Vivid

✦ Author: Ashely Bustamante

✦ Genre: YA romance fantasy (marketed as Christian but no faith content)

✦ Series: Book #1 in The Color Theory trilogy

✦ Recommend for: Ages 15/16+

My Personal Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐

📖 Synopsis

DANGER LURKS BEHIND EVERY COLOR

When Ava Locke was five years old, she began a journey to join the Benefactors—the leaders of the magical continent of Magus. Twelve years later, she unwittingly started down the road to betray them.

On Magus, where colors fuel magical abilities, yellow is banned in an effort to protect people from its mind-controlling capabilities. When a rogue Yellow magic-user named Elm escapes imprisonment, Ava becomes innocently fascinated with his story. Once this mysterious Elm shows up at her school, Ava pushes her interest to the next level by helping him evade the Benefactors. Ava grows increasingly conflicted as her intrigue leads her down a dark road of secrets about her world. As she learns more about Yellow magic’s potential to control its victims, Ava now must question whether her rash decisions are all her own or if someone else is pulling the strings.

💭 My thoughts

Solid 4 stars! I was completely sucked into this story and found it hard to put it down!

Fantasy isn't my favorite genre, especially fantasy with magic, so I was shocked that I enjoyed this book. Ava definitely made some *poor* decisions throughout the book, and that didn't really endear her to me, but of course everything turned out fine anyway 😉 I don't fully know how I feel about the romance, to be honest. On one hand, the progression was a little strange, and there were moments I had no idea what to think of Elm. But on the other hand, there were a lot of sweet, cute moments as well and I appreciated how clean and light it was.

I was a tiny bit confused at times because of the magic system, but it was still interesting to learn about and I think I followed along well enough. I also liked the dystopian elements of the plot a lot-- it was so exciting!

The beginning chapters were probably my favorite. Elm was such a different character, and I was not always sure if he could be trusted, but his personality was also extremely fun 😂

There were some parts and plot points I wasn't the biggest fan of - some of the fantasy violence, for example - but overall, this book was thoroughly entertaining and I am most certainly interested in reading the rest of the series.

⚠️ Some broad content notes

There are magic and spells in this book; everyone has certain powers that come with their color -- e.g., strength spells, agility spells, healing spells -- and Yellow magic users (who are 'illegal') can essentially control people's minds; no language stronger than blasted and darn; some fantasy violence including but not limited to a character using a spell that tears apart one's body, students at the magic school cutting themselves in order to learn healing magic, fighting, injuries, and blood; mentions of trying to take one's life (if I remember correctly); romantic attraction/noticing, flirting, and a few lightly detailed kisses.

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Bookishly yours, 

Lottie M