Future Imperfect by K. Ryer Breese

Book Details
Future Imperfect by K. Ryer Breese
Paperback, 320 Pages
2011, St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 0312641516

Synopsis
Ade Patience can see the future and it's destroying his life. When the seventeen-year-old Mantlo High School student knocks himself unconscious, he can see days and decades into his own future. Ade's the best of Denver's "divination" underground and eager to join the heralded Mantlo Diviners, a group of similarly enabled teens. Yet, unlike the Diviners, Ade Patience doesn't see the future out of curiosity or good will; Ade gives himself concussions because he's addicted to the high, the Buzz, he gets when he breaks the laws of physics. And while there have been visions he's wanted to change, Ade knows the Rule: You can't change the future, no matter how hard you try.

His memory is failing, his grades are in a death spiral, and both Ade's best friend and his shrink are begging him to stop before he kills himself. Ade knows he needs to straighten-out. Luckily, the stunning Vauxhall Rodolfo has just transferred to Mantlo and, as Ade has seen her in a vision two years previously, they're going to fall in love. It's just the motivation Ade needs to kick his habit. Only things are a bit more complicated. Vauxhall has an addiction of her own, and, after a a vision in which he sees Vauxhall's close friend, Jimmy, drown while he looks on seemingly too wasted to move, Ade realizes that he must break the one rule he's been told he can't.

The pair must overcome their addictions and embrace their love for each other in order to do the impossible: change the future.

Review
Future Imperfect started off decent, but quickly went downhill. Ade can see the future, but only when he gives himself a concussion. This concussion also gives him a high that he's become addicted to. The worse the concussion, the stronger the high. This distracted me almost immediately. I loved that Ade could see the future. I loved that the novel began with his with his writing to different "experts" trying to find out why he couldn't change what he saw. I very much loved that he continued to do this throughout the book. I continued reading the book for that reason alone, because nothing else in the book really worked for me.

Ade gets these concussions by either throwing himself off a building or getting beat up. I couldn't help constantly thinking what an absolute wreck he must look like. The book brings his scars up pretty early on, but the scars didn't sound like they coincided with amount of damage described. Being that the book contained a romantic story line, I found it difficult to believe that the love interest never seemed to care at all about his looks or safety.

Speaking of the love interest, Vauxhall (apparently her parents were hippies) ends up having an ability similar to Ade's. Except that instead of a concussion, she has to be, well, slutty. Oh, and she gets a high from it too, you know, beyond the high from orgasm. And, predictably enough, she's also addicted. The entire situation brought about a series of obvious turns. Ade is jealous. Ade tries to accept it. Ade tries to quit his concussion highs and hopes Vauxhall will do the same. Vauxhall doesn't want to quit. Or maybe she does. At this point, I'm so not caring about either one of them, or anyone else in the book.

Ade's mom is some kind of Jesus-freak that approves of his concussions. His psychiatrist also approves, or at least understands, and make it so he's allowed to stay in school and not be admitted to a psychiatric ward, where he obviously belongs. Ade's dad is in a coma and his best friend is a lesbian who seems to be a lesbian for no other reason than adding an "alternative lifestyle" character.

The entire plot of the book is that Ade doesn't want to kill this guy Jimi. He's seen himself do it, knows he can't prevent it and sets out to stop it anyway. Everything leading up to Jimi's foreseen murder made me want to kill him, but Ade's conscious won't allow it. More than the obvious is at play here and I was impressed by the authors weaving of this particular part of the story. As the pieces leading up to the murder fall together, many surprising moments occur. The ending was good, but the motivation behind it left me annoyed at the convenience of it.

I didn't like Future Imperfect. As much as I love a good seeing-the-future book, this one wasn't for me. It felt forced. In an effort to be dark and edgy, Future Imperfect came off as trying way too hard.

Rating

Links

K. Ryer Breese's
Website