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This is topic for the November book of the month, Prophase: A Present Tale by Mitchel Street. Please do not read this topic until you have finished the book as this topic may contain spoilers.

One thing I like about this book is that it surprised me a few times in a way that I found enjoyable. For a story to be enjoyable it must have the right balance in terms of surprises. A story can seem cliche or unbelievable or just annoying if there are too many surprises and twists that seem forced. Without any surprises a story will be too predictable and boring, like reading a third-grader's paper ("I put food in the cat's bowl. The cat ate the food. The cat went to sleep.").

I can think of two big surprises that got me in the book.

I was surprised when Esther was revealed as Piper's biological mother. Did this get you too?

I was also surprised by what Jazz turned out to be. I could tell of course that something was going on with the cat throughout the story, but what surprised me was what it turned out to be. So really the surprise wasn't with Jazz, but rather Dev's secret, if you know what I mean. (Spoilers are allowed in this topic, but no need to blast it too obviously in the very first post.) The irony is that I knew something was up with Dev too. Did this get you too?

Did any other surprises or twists get you while reading Prophase?

The Esther factor was a surprise for me, for sure. My first thought was that the old woman was actually the protector that was mentioned in the very beginning. By the time the Jazz/Dev surprise was revealed, I had kind of already predicted that one, so it wasn't a big shocker. Secretly, I was hoping that Dev would actually turn out to be one of the bad guys and I would have been more freaked out with surprise if that had happened. But hey, he could still be a bad guy, right??? Okay... no...

I kind of knew something was up since in the opening scene the woman giving birth to Piper spoke about being so late in life and having had a child much earlier, which didn't line up with Piper and her having just her younger brother Charlie. I knew from the get go that Jazz was the guardian, but I didn't think Dev was going to turn out to be Jazz. I knew Dev was something, I figured his aura was so blank because of some kind of charm. I actually expected him to be some kind of trap set by on of the bad guys or something... keeping an eye on her since she was close with Esther. But yes some nice twists and turns in there... always keeps it interesting.

One thing that still doesn't line up to me is that I remember there being a scene at the beginning where the teacher asks what was going on that weekend... and Lisa being all like oh the dance and Piper's b-day. And then like the dance happens and the very next day they have school. Which doesn't line up, because I thought they were supposed to practice that Sunday... IDK a lot of the timeline was kind of wonky for me, but I could have just been reading too fast. Did anyone else notice anything like that? I also thought the talent show was only like a week away or something... and then it was like FOREVER before it actually happened. lol. Maybe I'm just impatient.

Oh and ALynn I totally thought the same thing about Dev... I thought he was going to be a bad guy haha. His timing seemed too good to be good.

None. No surprises at all. It had a very predictable, very weak plot.

I agree with Poly. I thought that the plots and characters were weak. To me, the whole story was very predictable.

I knew Jazz was something but I was really surprised by Dev

Scott wrote:This is topic for the November book of the month, Prophase: A Present Tale by Mitchel Street. Please do not read this topic until you have finished the book as this topic may contain spoilers.

One thing I like about this book is that it surprised me a few times in a way that I found enjoyable. For a story to be enjoyable it must have the right balance in terms of surprises. A story can seem cliche or unbelievable or just annoying if there are too many surprises and twists that seem forced. Without any surprises a story will be too predictable and boring, like reading a third-grader's paper ("I put food in the cat's bowl. The cat ate the food. The cat went to sleep.").

I can think of two big surprises that got me in the book.

I was surprised when Esther was revealed as Piper's biological mother. Did this get you too?

I was also surprised by what Jazz turned out to be. I could tell of course that something was going on with the cat throughout the story, but what surprised me was what it turned out to be. So really the surprise wasn't with Jazz, but rather Dev's secret, if you know what I mean. (Spoilers are allowed in this topic, but no need to blast it too obviously in the very first post.) The irony is that I knew something was up with Dev too. Did this get you too?

Did any other surprises or twists get you while reading Prophase?

Yes, I was also surprised when Esther was revealed as Piper's biological mother. It quite surprised me. There are many more moments when I got surprised while reading the book.

The Jazz/Dev connection was the biggest surprise to me as well. I knew there had to be something going on with both of them, of course--just didn't expect it to connect the way it did. I was expecting Dev to be one of the enemies as many others have said. I was and still am a bit suspicious of him. With two more books to go in the series, I think there are still chances for some more reveals...