Blog Tour ~ Aversion by Kenechi Udogu Character Interview, Review, Excerpt + Giveaway!

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Character Interview

Hello Gemma! Since you’re stopping by my blog… tell us a little bit about yourself. 

Hi, my name is Gemma Green and as you already know, I’m an Averter, although I don’t usually go around telling people what I am. The only reason I’m conducting this interview with you is because that annoying Kenechi girl stole my diary and threatened to publish it online if I said no to you and I think this is the only way to stop…wait, I don’t have to tell you anymore. You know too much as it is. Next question. 

How does it feel to be the only girl Averter? 

Weird, I try not to think about it too much because I sometimes feel like I’m defective and Dad’s stuck with me but he says that’s just silly talk. It’s actually not too bad because we don’t talk to other Averters so I don’t tend to feel that I’m too different from the others, except for when I catch them staring at me. If we had a bit more interaction with them, I’m not sure how I’d take it all. 

Do you like being an Averter? Does it feel exhausting sometimes? 

Honestly, it’s the best feeling in the world to know that I can make a difference in people’s lives just by telling them to do something different to what they intended but it sometimes makes me sad when I think of all the other things I can’t fix in their lives. I guess it would be too much responsibility for us if we had to solve everybody’s problems all the time. 

What do you think of Russ Tanner? Describe Russ in 3 words ;) 

Russ is…Russ is annoying, horribly persistent and infuriatingly cute. Why are you looking at me like that? Cute is a descriptive word. 

Out of curiosity… what’s your favorite movie? 

I’m not a big fan of movies but my Dad made me watch The X-Men series when I was growing up and for a little while I fantasized that I would grow up to become Rogue. Thought aversion seems dull in comparison to what she could do. 

Thank you Gemma for stopping by! 

I didn’t really have a choice in the matter but I have to admit, this wasn’t half as bad as I thought it would be so, thanks for having me on your blog.

Aversion by Kenechi Udogu

Release Date: December 1, 2012
Publisher: Self-Published
Pages: 126
Genre: YA Paranormal
Source: Author
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords
Haunt Author: Website | Facebook | Twitter

For Gemma Green’s first time, things should have been straightforward. Find your subject, hold their gaze and push a thought into their head to save them from future disaster – Aversion complete. A pretty simple process given that the subject was to have no recollection of the experience. But Russ Tanner doesn’t seem to want to forget. In fact the more she tries to avoid him, the more he pushes to get to know her. Gemma knows she has a problem but is she facing the side effects of a failed Aversion or has the school’s tennis champ really fallen for her?

ADD TO GOODREADS

Gemma is training to be an Averter. Every parent trains their child although usually an Averter is male. Gemma takes her job seriously and has no friends. She tries to stay on the outside so she can focus on her job. The plot reminded me a little bit of The Adjustment Bureau. The Averter's job is to get a flash of something major that will happen to a person and then use their orb to tell the person not to do that action. Lead them back onto their correct path and future away from a huge mistake.

Gemma's first job is to avert a popular boy from school named Russ, who has a bright future in tennis, as long as he doesn't go to a party and drive home drunk. An aversion should leave no memory behind but Gemma fears she did something wrong when Russ shows an interest in her and begins following her around. Russ was really adorable but forbidden. An averter has their mate chosen for them at 21. Gemma hides what is happening with him but can't stop herself from wanting to explore her feelings.

This is a novella so it was a quick read but had a great set up. Gemma's powers and family history reveal a lot of background and deception into the Averter's and I can't wait to learn more. Gemma and Russ had a sweet build towards a relationship. Although Russ is popular he never had a problem hanging out with Gemma. Gemma was the more reserved one but he opened her up. Their connection runs a lot deeper than the Aversion and I can't wait to see how it develops. A unique paranormal story that can easily be read in one sitting.



"Do you really want that? What are you going to say to your friends when they ask where you've been? I don't know how else to convince you that us," I pointed at the both us, "isn't practical."
"I don't want practical. I want you."

Rating: 4/5

Excerpt

“You broke him.”

Again I jumped at the sound of a male voice close behind me. How come all these people were creeping up on me today? When I saw the speaker, I relaxed a bit but I still wasn’t happy. It was one of the four other Averters in our school. You didn’t really think it was only little old me stationed at our school, did you? There are far too many problems in life for most schools to be left with only one trainee Averter.

The slightly overweight boy who had startled me was the oldest Averter of our lot and was two years ahead of me at school. There was another boy in his year and two other boys in the year below me. Although none of us ever spoke to each other, we could tell what we were. I knew by the fact that I couldn’t read anything off them and also by the fact that when they first saw me, they had stared at me for much longer than I had stared at them. They were understandably shocked that I was a girl - their fathers must have had a lot of explaining to do when they got home – and it must have been difficult for them to accept that I wasn’t just defective. By speaking to me, this boy had just made my day even weirder.

“What?”

“I said you broke him. You must have. He definitely remembers you.”

“How do you…”

He hushed me by waving his hand in my face. “I’ve been doing this for three years and when I saw you today in the cafeteria, I knew you had finally carried out your first Aversion. A bit late if you ask me but I’m guessing that’s not the first disappointment your father has had to deal with.”

I was too shocked by his words to react. Dad had told me that some people were not pleased with the fact that he had decided to raise me as an Averter but I had never witnessed any hostility because of what I was.

The boy must have mistaken my silence for acceptance of his superiority because he carried on like he hadn’t just been incredibly mean to me. “You must have done something you weren’t supposed to. That’s why he has a memory of you but not what you did to him. You’re linked now and he knows it but he doesn’t know why.”

I should have been angry with him for being such an arse but what he said struck gold. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that before? I had told Russ to quit smoking and that was not part of what I was supposed to change in his future. I was only meant to stop his party attendance and the resulting events and I couldn’t even remember why I had added the smoking bit, but I had and here we were. I tried to calm myself down by thinking back to what Dad had thought me about failed Aversions but this was not quite a failed Aversion. I had carried out my task successfully, so what disaster did this fall under?

My next thought was that I had to tell Dad straightaway. He would know what to do. He might even have given me a scenario like this in the past as part of a test and I had forgotten.

“You’re going to have to fix him on your own.”

“What?” I must have sounded really dim to the boy. I hadn’t formed a single complete sentence since he started speaking to me.

“If you tell your father, you set yourself back a few months at best. There was a boy who messed up an Aversion a few years ago.” He paused and sucked in air through his teeth to convey the severity of the situation. “We’ve all been trying hard not to repeat his mistake.”

Despite my annoyance at his smugness and my curiosity as to what the boy’s crime and punishment had been, I had to swallow my pride and ask the question I felt was most important. As strange as it seemed, it sounded like he was trying to help me.

“And how do I fix him?” For obvious reasons, I didn’t keep notes about what we did so I couldn’t go home and search through my handy guide to being an Averter because there was none.

The boy shrugged and started to walk away. “Every one of them is different; it’s impossible to tell what moves one in relation to another. You have to figure it out for yourself. Just hope it’s something simple and quick.”

“Wait!” I called out to him but he acted like he couldn’t hear me and didn’t turn around. My goodness, he was really going to leave me hanging. 

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