The first installment of The Geneva Project throws a lot of world-building at the reader, but unfortunately, not all of it makes sense. Also, a not-always-likable main character does not help. ( )

Jane #65 didn’t know her real name. Only the one tattooed on her shoulder - LXV. She was an orphan on Hullabee Island and as such lived and worked at the Troian Center where she went to school in the mornings and in the afternoons she searched the rubble piles for anything valuable left from the floods that had destroyed much of the island. The lucky people lived in the city of Lux. The unlucky ones lived as locals outside the city in the villages and gathered food from the forest or grew what they could. Jane #65 wanted more.

Truth (The Geneva Project Book 1) was a wonderful book to curl up with and set aside the cares of the world as you delve into the mystery of Jane #65’s life. For the first 13 years of her life she has basically only had one friend but as she discovers abilities she never knew she had, she also finds herself surrounded with with 3 other youths with magical abilities too. But these abilities have to be kept hidden from the headmistress who will punish them if she finds out they are different from everyone else.

#65 has been told that there is a legend on the island that someone will come who will bring back harmony to the island. The group of youths seek to find out more of the legend. What they find surprises them.

I was completely captivated by this story. Part romance, part suspense, part thriller, this book has something for everyone. The storyline flowed very smoothly. I liked the addition of the marmouse. He both lightened the story and brought added tension where needed.

I loved the twist near the end of the story. I won’t elaborate on it as it would be a spoiler. I certainly wasn’t expecting it though. It has given me even greater incentive to want to read book 2!

The author did a beautiful job of describing the forest and the activities that took place there when she was learning to use her skills there. It was easy to visualize the globes of lights all amongst the trees.

There was one thing that I found bothersome in this edition of the book and that was the number of editing errors. I found mistakes in tense where present and past tense were both used in the same sentence or paragraph. I also found incorrect word usage such as shutter for shudder, ruble for rubble, cure instead of curl, crowed instead of crowded. I don’t know how much these errors would bother other readers, but I know I like to read books that have been thoroughly edited.

Despite the errors in the editing, I thought this book was pretty exceptional and I would recommend it to young adult fantasy readers everywhere. I gave this book 4 stars out of 5.

Thank you to the author for providing a copy of the book in exchange for a fair and honest review. A positive opinion was not required. All thoughts are my own.

This review is published on my blog Shelf Full of Books http://kathrynsshelffullofbooks.blogspot.com/2014/09/book-review-truth-geneva-pr... ( )

Fast paced great MG/YA adult novel that is going to be a great series. Characters are developing throughout the book and I'm interested to see how they develop in the rest of the series. ( )