Knowing by Kimberly Cross

Title: Knowing
Author: Kimberly Cross
Length: 5396 Kindle units
Rating: 3.5 stars

The Plot

Gray has always had a special power – the ability to know things that are going to happen before they do. But his powers get a lot stranger when he meets Tally. As soon as he sees her, he feels an irresistible urge to be near her and protect her. According to his psychic grandmother, this means that Gray can’t survive without her. But she’s an Army brat with an alcoholic dad who doesn’t want to give the time of day to a spoiled rich kid like Gray. Can he convince her that his feelings are real before it’s too late?

The Good

Knowing was a nice love story with a paranormal twist. Gray’s powers were interesting in that they didn’t cripple him in any way but gave him a unique advantage in every aspect of his life. Instead of having any kind of pain or complex sensory experience, he simply had extra knowledge in his head appear from nowhere. That is, until he meet Tally, who threw a monkey wrench into his ordinary life. Suddenly he’s being forced to use his powers to solve serious problems and provide emotional certainty to life or death issues. Fortunately, his powers are growing along with this need, though sometimes that makes things even worse.

The Bad

This is something I very rarely complain about, but in Knowing it was such a problem that I feel the need to bring it up. The formatting of the book for Kindle was terrible. There were no spaces between any of the lines, which made the whole book feel rushed. The indentation of paragraphs was sporadic, and it made it very difficult to read the dialogue because I couldn’t tell when someone stopped speaking.

As for the book itself, it got kind of repetitive after awhile. Gray would make Tally start to like him, then something would happen that would make her trust him less. This happened several times, and I could have dealt with one or two fewer iterations of it. Also, all the characters were really one dimensional, and most of them were completely irrational. It was like Gray, Tally, and maybe a few others were the only remotely decent people in the entire town, which was both hard to believe and kind of boring.

The Romance

There is a lot I could say about the romance in Knowing, because the book was almost all romance. Lots of Gray going on about how much he loved Tally. Which is fine, no complaints. But that’s not what I want to say. What I want to say is this:

Dear Fictional Boys,

I have a piece of advice that I hope you will take to heart. Never, under any circumstances, make a bet with any other guy that involves you getting to know a girl, whether you like her or not. You may think that it is harmless fun, but inevitably you will fall in love with said girl, or at least begin to see her as a person and not just the object of a bet. Unless you are a sociopath, but then you have other, more important issues to deal with.

Assuming that you are capable of basic empathy, though, at some point you will realize that using this girl for your own entertainment is wrong. If you have been so unwise as to ignore my advice to this point, I recommend that you tell the girl about the bet immediately. Because, believe me, she’s going to find out anyway, and it is better that she hears it from you. You may want to spare her feelings, but this situation can only play out in one, not terribly original or interesting way.

Save us all some angst. Don’t make this kind of bet, and if you do, don’t keep it a secret.

Will I read more?

I’m mostly “Meh” on the whole things. Knowing wasn’t terrible, but I’m probably going to lean on the side of not reading more. And that’s mostly because the story featured alcoholism prominently, and I have not yet recovered from having OCD and having to go through high school drug education fear tactics.

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