Review + Giveaway || The Family by Marissa Kennerson

Synopsis:
Just like any average seventeen year old, Twig loves her family. She has a caring mother and a controlling father. Her brothers are sisters are committed to her family’s prosperity…

All one hundred and eighty three of them.

Twig lives in the Family, a collective society located in the rainforest of Costa Rica. The Family members coexist with the values of complete openness and honesty, and a shared fear of contagious infection in the outside world.

So when Adam, their Father, prophet, and savior, announces that Twig will be his new bride, she is overjoyed and honored. But when an injury forces her to leave the grounds, Twig finds that the world outside is not necessarily as toxic as she was made to believe. When she meets Leo, an American boy with a killer smile, she begins to question everything about her life within the Family, and the cult to which she belongs.

But when it comes to your Family, you don’t always get a choice.

★★★★☆

You don't have just one color, you know. You're a rainbow of colors to me.

Cult related books are a really new territory, for me. I have only read one book with this theme, apart from this book, and it pretty much opened me up to new topics that I have been kind-of-avoiding.

Anyway, this book revolves around Twig. Twig lived her whole life with The Family, a collective group of people who are located at a rain forest, all afraid of the infectious 'disease' that their founding Father ingrained on them. When Adam, the aforementioned Father, announced that she's going to be his new wife Twig was overjoyed. But when injury forces her to leave their home, for some time, and she met Leo, a stunning American boy, her whole world turned upside down.

The premise? A killer. That is so eye and mind catching; it certainly did its magic on me. From the moment I read the synopsis, I knew, I just knew, that I'll end up liking it, or hell, loving it. The premise, was hands down, really great. I'm not sure whether the premise was clichnaié or was well-known or whatever, it was new and refreshing to me. I now consider this type of book something to watch out.

The characters, like the book itself, was really fun to follow. Twig (this name is so hippie) was like a young child, outside of their "camp" (that's what I call it, anyway). Her naiveté was not over the top, just right to make her character believable. Leo was curious and sweet and when he's with Twig, I couldn't help but swoon with his sweet, whimsical ideas and questions. The other characters were really a great support for the development of Twig and the story. Also, Adam was a controlling, condescending and dominating son of a bitch. He's a great addition to the characters, though.

Overall, I enjoyed the book so much. The first few chapters were kind of a bore to me but when I hit the "injury" part, I flew through the pages of the book.

Did I like the ending? I'm still unsure with this because it left me hanging.

Is it a page turner? Almost a one fifth of the book was kind of boring to me but the majority of the story was interesting enough to keep me turning the pages.

Would I re-read it again? A thousand yes.