Transparent by Natalie Whipple

Title: Transparent
Author: Natalie Whipple
Publisher:  HarperTeen
Release Date: May 21, 2013
Buy: Amazon

Goodreads Summary

Plenty of teenagers feel invisible. Fiona McClean actually is.

An invisible girl is a priceless weapon. Fiona’s own father has been forcing her to do his dirty work for years—everything from spying on people to stealing cars to breaking into bank vaults.

After sixteen years, Fiona’s had enough. She and her mother flee to a small town, and for the first time in her life, Fiona feels like a normal life is within reach. But Fiona’s father isn’t giving up that easily.

Of course, he should know better than anyone: never underestimate an invisible girl.

I rather liked this book. It wasn’t over the top and didn’t particularly amaze me so I cannot give it more than a 3.

However, there were some really interesting things going on in this book.

This whole world this author has created was interesting; because of an anti-radiation medicine, people started to mutate. They got interesting “powers”. But you cannot call them powers because they aren’t that. You cannot always decide when to use them or not, they are a part of you.

This whole idea amazed me because whenever a book is dealing with powers, they are generally glamorized, we don’t usually see that they don’t always have to be a good thing, and not in the sense that they can also be used for evil.

We see in this book how our main character Fiona has many issues with her invisibility. Of course there are some benefits but really how can a power like invisibility be really good when no one can see you, not even yourself. It’s not something you can turn on or off, you just are. For her this makes her rather conscious of herself because wherever she goes it basically looks like a bundle of clothes.  No one can call her beautiful, not even her own mother because they cannot SEE her.

Her father, who is a criminal, uses this to his advantage. She becomes his secret weapon.

I think the relationships are really well developed in this book, you can see how Fiona’s relationships with everyone change, starting from Bea to her Mom. Although I don’t understand why Bea kept coming back even after how Fiona treated her. I understand why she did that, I would be disappointed if she hadn’t, but you know still.

The Navarros are a really cute family. I am glad though that they aren’t picture perfect. They do have the creeps in their family (Carlos). It makes them more realistic.

Oh and the Mitchell brothers. Let me say this. I always liked Seth better. Brady is shown as the boy toy, the hot guy and we don’t see much depth to him. Seth however is the awkward person who doesn’t know how to express his feelings and has an attitude problem, no he isn’t one of the guys who pushes people away by being a jerk, he is just rude from time to time because of the many problems he has to deal with. Seth is the character with more depth (possibly more than our main character). So I guess that’s why I preferred him.

Her family is also interesting; we have Graham the eldest brother whose motives no one understands (although I did suspect them). Miles (who did seem to come off as a bit fishy) who is the nice brother she can always count on and her mother, who I will talk about later.

One of the other things I really like is how they aren’t out to be heroes. I don’t know what that says about me but you know I am tired of everyone always saving the day. It’s nice knowing that they do that but not everyone can save the day. Not everyone is a hero even if they have “super powers”.

I hate how she treats her mother. There I said it. It bothered the hell out of me in the beginning. Here her mom is sacrificing everything for her but she doesn’t get it. Of course I also understand why she doesn’t. Her mom has done this a couple of times-running away with her, but she always comes back because she cannot stand to be away from her father. She is weak but there is a reason for that as well, her father is a charmer, he emits a special smell (yes smell, I am serious but no it’s kind of cool) which attracts females to him and they have withdrawal symptoms if they stay for too long. He can basically make them do whatever he wants, because of this her mom was failed to protect her a couple of times and so Fiona isn’t sure of her mom.

I guess this also kind of explains the fact why they did a rather crap job at the whole running away. Usually people create fake identities and what not and actually run away with tons of money on their hands but they didn’t. Although, her mom was rather serious this time (or so she claims) so wouldn’t have she though it a bit more thoroughly?

Fiona was a rather flat character; she seemed to always be whining about her own problems and not really trying to understand that other people had problems as well. It was hard to connect to her from time to time.

There wasn’t much of a plot either but I think that’s the point, running away isn’t always exciting; they are in hiding, there isn’t much that is going to happen. Mostly the whole thing was about discovering what Graham was up to (of course this is my opinion) and whether or not he was on their side.

I was rather hoping the book was going to be exciting; the beginning had me so sure I would give the book at least a four.

“I nearly died the second I was born. The doctor dropped me, but it wasn’t his fault”

Tell me I am wrong, that that opening doesn’t reel you right in.

But things just kind of went down from there. I guess I was expecting a lot more. I was expecting a “heavier” read but this was rather light. So I recommend this book to anyone looking for a light, interesting read.