Review: Farsighted By Emlyn Chand

A Note To Readers

You are about to embark on a journey along with the characters in this novel. At the beginning of each chapter, you'll find a rune and a corresponding prophecy. Put your powers of divination to the test by trying to predict what each chapter holds based on the hints provided. Or you may choose to ignore the runic prophecies altogether and dive right into the story. Either way, happy travels.

I was lucky to win a copy of Farsighted by Emlyn Chand. I always like to find new books to ready (even if my TBR pile on goodreads is quickly approaching 500) and have to say that this is a different kind of paranormal young adult book. Had I not won this book, it might be sitting pretty at #495, but I was intrigued to read a book that wasn’t about werewolves, vampires or fallen angels. Emlyn delves into the world of paranormal that might be closer to normal that many of us realize, psychics.

Farsighted
By Emlyn Chand

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.  

Farsighted is about a 16 year old sophomore named Alex who was born blind because his small town mother was never vaccinated against the disease and contracted it while pregnant with him. Our “big oak tree” is an outcast at school because he is “different”.

Being blind since birth, he has adapted to the world rather well and refuses to have helpers while in high school, wanting to be like everyone else.  He expects that this year of school will be like every other year, completely awful! He doesn’t have any friends, he mom is a free spirit and he hates his dad. But this year is different, because of Simmi, a new transfer from India.

The two of them hit it off and become friends.  Then Alex starts to have these visions of events to come. At first he thinks he is just seeing things, but them he has an ominous death vision of his new found love interest Simmi.  He tries to shake it off as nonsense, but just cant get the vision out of his head. 

Curious he visits the new shop next to his mother floral shop, Miss Teaks. With caution, Alex starts to believe that he has what is called second sight, the ability to see events that might happen or will happen.  As Alex soon learns, he isn’t the only psychic in town. Simmi and Sharpi (Miss Teaks daughter) both have abilities of their own.

As the story continues, the three of them become friends. Simmi has the ability to read and influence emotions, Sharpi can see the dead (but she strongly denies it because she doesn’t believe) and Alex finally accepts his sight. Together, along with the help of Miss Teaks and another (super spoiler) they embark to change Simmi’s future. 

This book takes all three of them on a journey of friendship, trust and understanding.

I really enjoyed this book. It was different, well written and funny! I mean having a vision while taking a crap!!!! [Insert chuckle here]. Emlyn develops a very unique and diverse world, filled with longing, conflict and love.

I had a difficult time at first getting into this world. I'm thinking I'm getting to old to remember what high school was like and being able to relate, but that’s beside the point.  As the story went on, I couldn’t put it down.  The last half of the book was great; suspenseful, quirky, and seductive.   

I was surprised to read a book with a male POV. I haven’t read any (except a lil excerpt here and there) where there is a male as the lead. At times I felt his voice was a bit feminine, I don’t think that the male species would be so worrisome about certain issues, but I could be wrong.  I feel that his longing for Simmi was a bit fast and his anger towards his dad was a bit wishy-washy. 

I was very intrigued to read a book where the main character was blind.  I mean so many novels have a large emphasis of describing visuals of the world! How is she going to pull this off! But Emlyn did very well.  Building the world through smells, sensations and sounds. But I also felt that the book was missing that extra umph to make me get lost into the story. I felt that the descriptives were almost there. I think that someone who has been blind his whole life, would have a just a bit more sixth sense about things.  Like a description of how his mother shuffles, or the difference of shuffling between individuals would have made it perfect.

This was a very good book. I think that the last half of the book is better than the first half.  It could just be the development of the world that wasn’t working for me, but the end made up for it.  By the time I got to NY I knew where I was and I didn’t want to leave (even if it smelled of sewage and pizza). 

I like that this book is about psychics.  It’s a very real paranormal young adult book.  You actually think that there can be someone with second sight and the ability to change emotions (if you are open minded enough).  Compared with a book about vampires (some of us might believe there is, but its still a fantasy).

This book has humor, a bit of romance and a lot of action and anger.  It’s a thrilling tale of developing friendship; acceptance and doing anything for the people you love.  A definite read if you need something different in your life. 

Overall Rating 4/5