Review: Drawn by Cecilia Gray

Drawn

Author: Cecilia Gray  
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Gray Life, LLC
Genre: YA Paranormal/Thriller
Format: Ebook
Release Date: December 15, 2013
Source: Received eARC from Publisher through Netgalley
Rating: 2 Stars
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 ***I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. This has in no way changed my opinion of the book. The review below is my open and honest opinion.***

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Take a journey into the gritty world of political espionage through the eyes – and lies – of one extraordinary girl. A wholly original tale of friendship and betrayal from the author of The Jane Austen Academy series....

Sasha has a secret – that she can make you spill your secret with nothing more than a question. Her strange gift makes her a burden to her foster family and a total freak of nature. Not that Sasha cares. Why should she when no one cares about her?

Then the CIA knocks on her door. They want to give Sasha a new identity and drop her into a foreign country to infiltrate a ring of zealous graffiti terrorists. They want to give Sasha something to care about.

To survive a world where no one is who they seem, Sasha needs to make people trust her. But when that trust blossoms into love, Sasha is forced to decide between duty and friendship, between her mind and her heart, and whether to tell the truth or keep her secrets.

My Review:

I really love the show Covert Affairs which follows a young CIA agent. So when I read the synopsis for this book and saw CIA and that the main character could force people to tell the truth I was super excited. Unfortunately, it was kind of a letdown.

The main character, Sasha, can force people to say what they’re thinking. There is something about her vocal waves that makes people speak their minds unless they wait five seconds before speaking. This was an interesting concept and definitely useful in an interrogation room. Initially Sasha is working for the FBI, but then she gets tapped on the shoulder by the CIA and travels to Belgium to work a mission.

The mission is to get in with a bunch of graffiti artists (Sasha is a talented artist) and manipulate them into hitting certain targets that the CIA wants them to hit. She is told to target some North African Embassy (I think). This was a bit confusing. I don’t know if it was just because I was reading an ARC, but whenever they said the name of the target it was just a dash in the book. So from my understanding, I believe it is the North African Embassy, but I could be wrong. So anyway, they are supposed to use the graffiti to point out the embassy’s questionable policies to rally the people against them. Kind of lame. At least that’s what I thought. I thought her mission would be cooler. Something more badass. But nope. She’s just running around with a bunch of kids spray-painting pictures of pigs on billboards and buildings.

Even though the plot was lacking, I did enjoy the main character. Sasha has always been kind of an outsider. She was abandoned as a baby and never had many friends. Things tend to get awkward when she gets too close to people because of her ability to make them say what’s on their mind. But when she takes the CIA mission, she makes a friend for the first time in her life: her handler’s daughter, Viv. I loved Viv’s character. She was super nice, passionate, and bubbly. Viv really helped Sasha come out of her shell and she showed Sasha how important it is to have family and friends in your life.

The romantic interest Sebastian was okay. Nothing about him really stuck out for me except his French accent which of course was super sexy. That was something I really enjoyed about the book: the French. There were small snippets of French spattered throughout since it was set in Belgium. I took four years of French in high school (though I seriously suck at it) and enjoyed figuring out what the sentences meant. I actually got most of them, surprising myself.

For me, the plot of this book was just not exciting enough. I thought there would be more action and higher stakes, but there wasn’t. And I literally figured it out 29% into the book which is always super upsetting. Oh and the ending was terrible. I liked where Sasha ended up, but there were so many other things that didn’t get tied up. There was even one character that may or may not have been dead. We literally don’t know if he’s alive. And it’s a standalone so I guess we’ll never find out. It was abrupt and left me feeling completely unsatisfied. My advice: skip it. Happy reading all!

Have you heard of this one? Read it? What did you think? Do you know of any other CIA books I should check out?