"Because of what you are, the Believers will hunt you down "

That first line in the synopsis is what made me want to read this book, and I'm glad I did. Full disclosure: I didn't read the first book of this series, but I was able to follow along very easily. A group of teen psychics are being hunted by a fanatical church (cult) called The Believers, whose sole goal is to kill all of them because they consider them unnatural and dangerous. They don't just kill them though - they kidnap them and torture them to try to understand their powers so they can use that knowledge to fight fire with fire. They are about to find out, though, what happens when a group of very angry psychics decide to fight back.

This book had a lot of characters to try to remember but they were each well written and unique, so I didn't really have a problem with it. The powers the kids had were very interesting and again, very unique to each person. It was a very quick read because the pace moved along swiftly, and the ending was satisfying.

4/5 stars. ( )

Diese und weitere Rezensionen findet ihr auf meinem Blog Anima Libri - Buchseele

Ich weiß, ich weiß, gute Vorsätze und alles, wenn einem der erste Band nicht gefallen hat, dann sollte man die Finger von den nächsten Bänden lassen, etc. pp. Immer wieder schmeiße ich diesen Vorsatz um, nur um dann bitterlich enttäuscht zu werden, so auch bei „Indigo: Der Aufstand“ von Jordan Dane.

Dabei fängt das Buch ganz interessant an, greift genau die Handlungselemente auf, die ich trotz aller Unzufriedenheit mit „Indigo: Das Erwachen“ gut fand, und ich hatte schon so große Hoffnungen, dass aus der Geschichte noch was wird :D Aber das war natürlich nichts…

Die Handlung schleicht so vor sich dahin und das auf ziemlich vorhersehbaren Wegen, die Charaktere ergehen sich in stumpfen, repetitiven Handlungen ohne sich überhaupt mal weiter zu entwickeln und sind hauptsächlich einfach nur kitschig und der Schreib- und Erzählstil ist langweilig und eintönig.

Mein Fazit daher: In Zukunft werde ich mich an meine guten Vorsätze halten und keine Fortsetzungen mehr lesen von Serien, bei denen mir der erste Band schon nicht gefallen hat. Jordan Danes „Indigo: Der Aufstand“ habe ich nach etwa der Hälfte abgebrochen, weil ich einfach keine Lust mehr darauf hatte und trotz wiederholter Versuche es doch noch zu Ende zu lesen, ist daraus nichts geworden… :|

Wem der erste Band gefallen hat, der wird sich vermutlich auch mit diesem hier anfreunden können, wem aber Teil eins schon nicht gefallen hat, dem kann ich von der Fortsetzung nur abraten! ;) ( )

Originally Reviewed At: Mother/Gamer/Writer
Rating: 3 out of 5 Controllers
Review Source: NetGalley/Blog Tour
Reviewer: Ariel


Crystal Fire, the second novel in The Hunted series by Jordan Dane was a fairly quick read with a slow beginning that got better as the story went on.

The novel opens with Caila Ferrie trying to find her friend Zach who has gone missing, and in order to find him she is enlisting the help of a boy named Oliver Blue. Both Caila and Oliver are Indigo children, kids who have psychic abilities. Indigo children are being hunted down by members of the Church of Spiritual Freedom, called the Believers, and Caila is afraid they may have gotten her friend Zach. Oliver agrees to help and things seem to be going fine until the two are kidnapped and taken to Ward 8, a section of the mental hospital Haven Hills. No one really knows what goes on in Ward 8, but kids go there and they never get released.

Now, Crystal Fire is multiperspectival which is great, I love being in the heads of different characters and following multiple plot lines. However, you don’t hear from Caila again until you’re a good chunk of the way through the novel. Maybe halfway, maybe a little further? It was frustrating to me, because I feel like if you open a novel with a specific character, they should play a significant role, but Caila doesn’t really. She does maybe one important thing towards the end, but all in all we don’t get a lot from her.

The story mainly focuses on Gabriel, Rayne, Lucas, Rafe, and Kendra, the gang from the first book, Indigo Awakening. Rafe is having a difficult time dealing with the death of Benny, a child he had grown really close to, caring for him like a younger brother. While the rest of the group is trying to prepare themselves for going up against the Believers, Rafe comes up missing and they have to search for him, hoping to find him before the Believers do. This part of the novel was the part that interested me most, it was interesting seeing the dynamic between all of the kids as they start to band together and really become a family. The romantic relationships between Rayne and Gabe as well as Kendra and Rafe are also highlighted, giving each of the kids something extremely important to them that they don’t want to lose.

The writing style of the book was ok, other than Caila, the perspectives were pretty evenly spread out between the characters, and the scenes were usually pretty well placed. Another thing that kind of bothered me was the fact that it would switch perspectives within chapters. I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve come to expect that with multiperspectival novels each perspective usually gets it’s own chapter, but it really bothered me. The passage of time was also pretty weird. A scene would end and then it would say minutes later instead of just saying, a few minutes later, blah blah blah. I dunno, it’s just a preference in writing styles, it might not bother others as much as it bothered me.

I will say it was an interesting plot, you don’t see many novels about a group of psychic kids who are just trying to survive in this world (or maybe you do and I just haven’t read them?) and you really do sympathize with the kids. Their ages range from about 6-17 and there are groups of grown adults trying to experiment on them because they think they’re monsters. They’re just a group of kids who happen to be a little different, but they still deserve to live like everyone else.

From me, Crystal Fire gets 3 out of 5 controllers. The plot was interesting, but Caila felt really out of place to me, and the writing style just didn’t do it for me. I still think it’s worth picking up and reading, if it sounds like your cup of tea.


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I was trying to make it to at least 25% of Crystal Fire, but I just couldn't do it anymore at 13%. I was hopeful for a bit there since we start off with new characters, but things quickly went down hill. The couples from the previous book show up a couple of chapters in and immediately manage to annoy me with their cheesy interactions. There was a section of at least 5 paragraphs of info dumping to remind us of the previous book that masqueraded as reminiscing. There is a secondary character that dies in the previous book and said character very clearly only existed to die and make us sad and hate the bad guys. That being said, I still don't have strong feelings about the villains because I know nearly nothing about them! How did their organization come about? What is its actual goal? What does it pretend to be to the outside world? How does it have all this money? I can't hate something I know nothing about D:. Finally, despite the info dumps, I still know very little about the structure and rules of the magic powers in this series and it drives me nuts. There are Indigo children and Crystals apparently? Crystals are more peaceful and Indigos more warriorlike? Except the characters that are supposed to belong to each group don't reflect that AT ALL?? Everything feels so arbitrary and I just can't finish this one unfortunately. ( )