Blog Tour: Farsighted by Emlyn Chand

Title: Farsighted
Author: Emlyn Chand
 Publisher: Blue Crown Press
Date Published: November 24, 2011

Synopsis: Alex Kosmitoras’s life has never been easy. The only other student who will talk to him is the school bully, his parents are dead-broke and insanely overprotective, and to complicate matters even more, he's blind. Just when he thinks he'll never have a shot at a normal life, a new girl from India moves into town. Simmi is smart, nice, and actually wants to be friends with Alex. Plus she smells like an Almond Joy bar. Yes, sophomore year might not be so bad after all.

Unfortunately, Alex is in store for another new arrival—an unexpected and often embarrassing ability to “see” the future. Try as he may, Alex is unable to ignore his visions, especially when they begin to suggest that Simmi is in danger. With the help of the mysterious psychic next door and new friends who come bearing gifts of their own, Alex must embark on a journey to change his future.

Review: Read the synopsis for Farsighted and decided to give it a go. I wasn't completely drawn in when I read the description- but the idea of being able to see the future peaked my interest. As I read Farsighted I realized why I wasn't completely in love with the synopsis- and that reason is simple... it is impossible to write a wonderful summary in such a short amount of space!! There was never a moment where I felt the need to put the story down- the pace upbeat and fast, but at the same time steady. 

Author, Emlyn Chand did an excellent job with writing through the perspective of a young boy who is blind. Getting down the smallest details of the senses that Alex would be able to pick up were descriptive and realistic, which isn't always easy to do. Seeing is second nature to anyone who has sight... but to those who can't see, their senses become stronger- and this is a major key role in Farsighted. 

Alex, is not able to see through his eyes but he is able to use his mind to see- he learns this after he comes in contact with a psychic, Miss Teak. He finds out that he has gifts beyond his knowledge. These "gifts" help and hurt him- but he has to learn to use them for the better with the help of his friends who also have the ability to use touch, senses, their mind to control and help with certain situations. What made this book so great was that there was so much going on all at once-- different dynamics of the plot where coming from every which way...and it was all up to a small group of people to figure out the obstacle that's coming their way.  

I enjoyed the characters that Emlyn so vividly created. Each character has their own unique personality. Of course any reader would be silly to not have a soft spot for Alex and Simmi! I look forward to the next book to see where their relationship is headed!  And of course there's never going to be a book without an enemy right?? that's where Dax comes in. Dax is a dream character I guess you could say- Alex gets flashes of episodes that play out in his head. Alex has to figure out how who Dax is and what his motive is before its too late.

There is quite a bit going on in the book- most of it too complex to where the main characters are not fully aware and are missing the pieces to the entire puzzle. As I reader I was able to pick up on parts of what I thought would happen (of course at the time it was all a guessing game- and in hopes of what I wanted the outcomes to be ;-) hehe). Some may think the "dream" sequences are confusing. To be completely honest, I had to reread the section over again, the first time Dax came into the picture, but once I understood what was going on it was easy to switch your thinking over from reality to dream. 

I think this is a wonderfully written original piece of work- and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for just a leisure read :-)

Stars: 4 of 5

You Can Buy FARSIGHTED at Amazon or Barnes and Noble

 

Emlyn's website is : http://www.emlynchand.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/emlynchand

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emlynchand

 

This tour was brought organized by Lightening Book Productions!!