The Conspiracy of Us by Maggie Hall

Avery is the key to an ancient prophecy. Some want to use her as a pawn and some want her dead. Avery must follow a trail of clues left to her by a family friend. She wont be going at it alone... Stellan and Jack will both be a long for the ride and keeping secrets of their own. She will have to choose not only between freedom but between the boy who might help her save the world, and the one she's falling in love with.

Okay... Where to start... Guess I'll start with the most obvious thing about this book, the cover. The cover of this book pulls you in! It's a beautiful... But it also managed to do one of my biggest pet peeves. The girl on the front doesn't match the girl on the insides. Avery is shorter with dark hair. The girl on the cover appears taller and has dirty blonde hair. I HATE, HATE! when books do this. I know I have never done cover art before but I'm pretty sure the people who make it get a copy of the book, so I don't see how it could be so hard to make them match. 

Now on to what's inside, The Conspiracy of Us was just fine. That's it though, it's just fine. The book starts off with Avery the girl who is constantly moving with her mom and has a very average life. She doesn't have many friends, etc etc. Then of course the story has the mysterious boy in class that she swoons from from a far. Jack. He sounds super hot but as far as his character went I didn't really have any connection too him. Same with Stellan... correction I probably liked Stellan more. Avery is the same way. Most of the time she was kind of annoying. I was hoping she would turn out to be a super bad-ass. I really prefer my leading ladies strong and independent and THEN they have a boo on the side. Avery was whiny and heavily relied on the guys around her. All three of the main characters are just like-able enough for you to keep reading but nothing you haven't seen before. 

The plot of this story was probably my biggest issue with this book. It started off like it was going to be a unique story that twisted history, but the incorporation of historical "facts" ended up being a turn off for me. The running around from country to country made the book rather sloppy. Along with all of that this book suffered from a case of predictability. There wasn't a single "twist" that happened that I didn't see coming from a mile away. And for that "dramatic conclusion".....

Sorry but I saw it coming from a mile away. The second Avery got on the plane I knew every single step she was about to take. I found myself underwhelmed with this story. As for what I liked, I LOVED!!!! the romance scene between Avery and Jack. It was written Flawlessly. It was sweet, creative, and was a highlight in this book. It wasn't enough for me to rate this higher, but I did get a little weak in the knees. 

Hall's writing is strong, and I feel like if I was new to YA I would have fell for this story harder... Sadly I'm not new to the game so I didn't get all I wanted from this book. I had high hopes for this book and have sadly been let down. I don't know if I'll continue this series or not. 

5/10 Stars  
-Angela