Analysis: Intertwined

Intertwined by Gena Showalter (1/5)

I don’t even really know where to start with unpacking this, so we’ll break it into categories. Honestly, this book bored me more than anything else, which I guess is better than making me angry in the “tempted to throw the book against the wall” sort of way.

The Premise

This is what makes me so sad. The premise is really interesting. The main character has four other people living in his head, each of them with their own special abilities. Julian can raise the dead, Eve can time travel to earlier version of Aden’s own self, Elijah can see the future, and the Caleb can possess other beings. I intentionally put Caleb last because I finished this book and spent way too long trying to remember what the hell his power was… because he used it twice. And Julian’s power was only used in the first chapter, I’m pretty sure.

Which I think is one of this book’s main shortcomings. It got so bogged down in the vampires and werewolves that it didn’t focus on the interesting part. Aden has people inside his head! With powers! So why are we so focused on his vampire girlfriend? But we’ll get to her….

The Characters

Aden Stone: I have zero feelings toward Aden whatsoever. He was labeled as a “troubled kid,” shuffled between foster homes and mental institutions because he has this habit of talking to himself. He seems like he wants to do the right thing. Mostly help free the people in his head, who have been his only friends throughout his life. But I just didn’t get much personality from him. What I did get was conflicting. The thing that stands out most in my mind is his tendency to get into fights. Most of the time, he seems like a fairly mellow (boring?) person who really just wants people to leave him alone. Someone tries to start a fight and Aden isn’t interested. But then they call him a wuss and Aden goes straight from “I don’t want to fight” to “I’m going to punch him in the face until someone stops me.”

Plus, he’s dense. There are characters who aren’t the sharpest. Some are even endearing in their stupidity. Aden drove me crazy with how long he took to come to some conclusions. The best example: Aden realizes (way too late) that he can see ghosts. I knew it from the time he first met two of them. What were the clues? Well let’s see…

1. This lady, described as having “shimmery skin,” seemed desperate to talk to him because she hadn’t been able to speak to anyone in a long time.

2. He ended up with this kid yammering at him in class. When Aden said something back, he got in trouble for talking in class, but this other shimmery skinned kid didn’t. Why??? Hell if Aden knows.

3. When he told someone else about the kid in class, she says something along the lines of “someone was messing with you. That kid died last year.”

Aden… honey… please.

Mary Ann: Aside from the four souls in Aden’s head who don’t get nearly enough screen time, Mary Ann was probably my favorite character. She could have used a lot more development and a better arc, but her character had so much potential. She’s the “ten year plan” type of girl, I think mostly because of pressure from her father, but not resentful about it. Even her dad tells her she needs to spend less time on schoolwork and more time having fun. I love seeing characters like this be pushed out of their comfort zone and fail spectacularly, but unfortunately her character doesn’t really go anywhere from there. Aside from skipping class a few times and crushing on a werewolf before she even knows anything about him or sees his human form.

Victoria: Ah… Victoria. Oh how I wished you were interesting at all. A vampire princess, the daughter of the infamous Vlad the Impaler (AKA Dracula). Aden (or Elijah, technically) saw her in visions and Aden was already half in love with her before they met. I’m okay with a fascination, excitement, and instant attachment associated with having visions of kissing someone. Sure. But their relationship never becomes real to me. I don’t have any idea what draws Victoria to Aden, and we never get much more than “damn, she’s hot” for the reasons behind his feelings. I hate insta-love with no basis in chemistry…. That was this relationship.

Riley: He easily could have been my favorite character. He’s the broody, stoic, raised to be a warrior type that I have a weakness for. If there were anything beneath that. We learn basically nothing about his past and he doesn’t show much depth beyond perhaps moments of softness toward Mary Ann. He latches onto Mary Ann in the same way that Victoria and Aden latch onto each other. There appears to be emotion behind it except perhaps physical attraction. He walks her to and from school in his wolf form for no apparent reason (if there was a reason, I missed it).

In summary… none of the characters had much depth in my opinion and the romance felt forced. There was very little emotion in this book and I didn’t find myself attached to any of the characters.

The Plot

The plot to this book was… okay? I guess? The basic bones of the plot are interesting. Thinking back, I couldn’t even remember what all happened that filled all 400+ pages of this book. It starts out with Aden battling zombies in a graveyard because Julian has no control over his ability to raise the dead. Cool! The corpses even have some kind of venom that Aden has to deal with. Fun fact: we never hear anything about zombies and Julian’s power again, except maybe brief references.

Basically, the main plot is they’re trying to figure out how to free the people trapped inside Aden’s head, as well as figure out why he has some weird connection with Mary Ann. She seems to mute the voices in his head (except when Riley is around which… isn’t ever really explained). Their whole deal was the other interesting thing about this book to me. But then Victoria and Riley show up and everything gets so side-tracked until we finally come back around to figuring out Aden and Mary Ann’s past and how they’re connected.

Toward the end, we finally remember that we’re supposed to be focused on Aden’s past. We learn that Mary Ann’s father was actually one of the doctors who treated Aden a long time ago, prompting Eve to travel them back in time, and eventually this leads to the revelation that Eve is Mary Ann’s mother. Which I figured out the moment they told us her mother had the same time traveling ability.

This book focused way too much on Victoria and Riley and setting up tension with her Big Bad father. It didn’t give enough time to the actual plot of the book. It felt like I kept getting a bunch of world lore thrown at me but nothing explained in depth. We get an brief mention of all these other supernatural creatures in the second half of the book. Faeries and goblins and witches want to find Aden because he’s some kind of beacon of power… and oh, right, Mary Ann’s (ex) boyfriend is part demon! I have no idea why this was even a part of this book. It felt like a little tidbit that held no importance other than maybe offering an explanation for why Tucker was such an asshole.

I just don’t understand why the author made this a book about (mostly unexplained) supernatural creatures when it should have been about Aden and the four souls’ abilities. The four of them could have been great characters if they got any attention beyond yammering in Aden’s head. All of the world-building felt so surface-level. If you wanted to write a book about vampires and werewolves… just write a book about vampires and werewolves? People love that kind of stuff. But it was not what I expected going into this, based solely on the blurb.

Overall, I was very disappointed in the execution of such an interesting premise. I considered stopping halfway through but was curious enough to see where it went that I slogged through it. And, of course, so I could bring you this in-depth review. I hope you enjoyed reading this more than I enjoyed the book.