Brady Stefani

SciFi is not a huge genre with me. I often get bored with a story that I find gets bogged down with things that have odd names. The blurb about this book intrigued me. When combined with the cover, I knew I had to read it. Mental health issues draw me in. As for aliens, it totally depends on the story being told. This story involves both those subjects. I believe the author may have a lot of knowledge on both of them. Was it a mental health issue or an alien issue? I have no idea. I do know Courtney believes it is alien but then she is the one who may have the mental health issue. Nothing is really clear yet. I don't even know if I like Courtney all that much. Is that a bad thing? Not in this story. Surprisingly that works for me. What I did like about Courtney is her development. She starts out kind of whiny but grows into finding herself and her strength. I don't believe she is stable in that strength and I am hoping the author follows his path with her personal growth. I like how he presents her growth with times of doubt happening. That is realistic. I also liked how we don't really know if she is aligning with aliens against an enemy group or is delusional. I am, personally speaking, siding with an alien group but I could see this wrapping up as mental health delusions. For me it adds to the mysterious air of this story that makes it so interesting. I did not like her mother so much. I understand it is difficult to parent a teen you believe is mentally disturbed. You don't know if you should force them into reality or if you should go along with the delusions. I do think her mother went to far one way though it was kind of explained at the end. I hope that gets further explored in the next book.
Here is what didn't work for me. One is a personal preference. In a book with so much left in question, I need a balancing bar. I need to know how many books are expected before it wraps up. Is this a trilogy? Or longer? The other part was Courtney has a sister who hints that she knows of the aliens. Agatha has a brother involved too. Yet neither of those stories really developed into anything. I am hopeful they come out more in the next book. As it is, I'm not certain why either of them were really brought in. They just left me hanging. That is where the story lost a star for me.

Final judgement on this is, it is an interesting and addictive read. I really did not want to put it down as the action was intense and moving fast.
I didn't find any issues with language, sex or gore for those who want to know about that.
This book was reviewed through BookTasters. All opinions expressed are my honest thoughts and belong to me.


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Courtney Hoffman was put through an extremely traumatizing event by her grandfather, a person she loved and trusted dearly... Or so her memory tells it. Since that time, Courtney has began hallucinating alien visitations in her bedroom and even developed a friendship with an "imaginary" girl, named Astra. Fearing for their daughter, her (divorced) parents sought out professional help, and for a while it worked. As her 15th birthday neared, though, her plaguing memories and horrible nightmares return with more urgency and force than before.

Courtney's mother is super brash and insensitive towards her daughter (I didn't like her at all!). Her father is separated from her and his ex wife and never seems to have a moment to spare his daughter. She has one friend, Lauren, that she can never confide anything to, in fear of being ratted on. Mostly everyone in her life thinks she's crazy and believe that she's headed down the same road her grandfather traveled. It isn't until Courtney's sent to a psychward that she befriends Agatha, a person she can actually trust. With Agatha's help, the pair uncover the truth and learn they might actually be the only people that can save both the alien world and theirs from destruction.

The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman is geared towards the middle grade/ YA audience but truthfully I feel all ages can enjoy Brady Stefani's story! I, unfortunately, didn't connect very well with the MC. I thought she was bit too whiney and the fact that she was constantly trying to run from her problems instead of facing them head on bothered me. Thankfully though, she developed more of a back bone towards the end and makes up for it. I really love Agatha's character! I think Agatha and I could actually be friends in real life, haha.

I wish Agatha's brother was included a bit more than he was. I think his character has great potential to add more to this story (maybe in the next installation?).

Brady Stefani's writing is easy to follow and I never lost interest in it. It was refreshing to read a YA sci-fi involving alien creatures; I don't think aliens get enough attention these days! There's humor, adventure, Norwegian death -metal music and alien creatures! What's not to like? Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I'm interested to see what Brady Stefani writes next.


*** I received this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to booktasters on twitter for introducing me to this author, and a huge thanks to Brady Stefani for not only sending me a copy of his novel in an eBook format but a signed print as well! ***

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Young Courtney Hoffman wants a normal life: Spend time with her friends, watch her sister play soccer, figure out if her crush likes her, and to stop fighting with her mom. It seems that was never in the stars for the teenager. When she was seven years old her grandfather gave her a tattoo that would later shape her understanding of mankind and the universe. Fighting against the ideas of being crazy, and the hatred of her mother’s boyfriend, Courtney has to figure out how to save the world with the tools her grandfather never got the chance to teach her and the ability she never knew she had.

This is a YA Sci-Fi story that focused a lot more on the Sci-Fi than on the YA.

What Didn’t Work: This story left a lot untold. As I got further along in the story I found myself having to reread pages because I felt like I was missing something. At the climax of the story, two characters emerge as being a lot more than what they seem. A nurse and Dr. Anderson, who is Courtney’s mother’s boyfriend. Then as the story ends these two characters disappear. We never know what came of the nurse and we never learn what Courtney does to deal with the knowledge that Dr. Anderson, is the worst guy than she even thought. Jorg and his Norwegian partner and their force to take Courtney’s grandfather’s invention also lack conclusion. In the final chapter, we find Courtney worrying that Jorg will call on her one day but it’s never told why this is a bad thing when Jorg is a part of the good guys. Courtney says that one look in Jorg’s eyes and she knew she could trust him, and yet she doesn’t trust him. There is also Agatha’s brother and his friend at the home. There are a lot of characters who stop appearing in the story and they weren’t needed much to move the story along. Courtney's’ events are barely concluded in this story. Will there be a sequel, and even if there is a sequel the wrap up to this story could have been a tighter.

What Did Work: This YA has no love interest. In fact, it is almost more of a Sci-Fi story with the main characters happening to be young. I enjoy YA so it’s surprised me that this lack of a romantic pursuit doesn’t bother me. But the author does a really good job of leaving us in the new world of discovery and understanding right along with Courtney. We don’t know any more than Courtney does because the story is written in first-person POV. We are just as shocked when we read tens of thousands of Dragzon aliens have escaped the wormhole. That worked because this is not a familiar alien world. This is all new; it should be new to us, the reader, as well.

I enjoyed “The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman;” The alien Sci-Fi with a very small alien presence. It’s more about setting up a new series and having Courtney understand what she is called to do and how to do it. If it is a series it will work out great. If it’s not a series, it is lacking in the way of a conclusion.… (más)