Originally Reviewed At: Mother/Gamer/Writer
Rating: 4 out of 5 Controllers
Review Source: Blog Tour
Reviewer: Sarika


One by Leigh Ann Kopans follows the story of a young girl, Merrin, caught in between two universes, normalcy and the supernatural world. Being a One, she fits in nowhere, consequently without any sense of community or belonging, until the day she meets Elias…

One of the things I believe the author captured extremely well was the entire high school experience; I personally felt like I could relate to some of the topics explored through the novel, the awkwardness of adolescence, the new relationships you build, and wading to the superficial to find the real you.

The romance aspect felt too rushed for me, however. Although I liked the idea of a supernatural girl falling for someone who makes her a better person, the key to unlocking her potential, I already knew what was going to happen to the characters romantically two chapters before they actually did. The routine of instant love, replicated through thousands of YA books, was not missed here. I just found it very unbelievable that one of the most good-looking boys in school would take a sudden interest in the new kid because “There’s a good energy coming off [her] or something”, further hindering the whole reliability-thing that the author had going on.

And although Kopans did touch on significant issues such as ‘unfriendly contact’ and harassment with the protagonists past, it was unsettling to see the quick and easy manner in which she discarded her history and fell head over heels in love with Elias.

Having said that, I believe that the book brilliantly captures the aspects of life teens go through every day; it puts into words what most of us are unable to express by ourselves. He’s jealous of his sisters, but the love is stronger than the jealousy; although these lines are certainly out of context with regards to the situation they are in, all of us must have felt like this at some point or another with our siblings; the author’s ability to capture human emotion and express them on paper is certainly uncanny.

Moreover, although the plot started a little slow towards the beginning of the book, it picked up towards the second half, throwing twists and turns that left me gripping the book, on the edge of my seat. The second half definitely made up for the lack of characterization in the first, and it wasn’t until the final stroke hit the canvas that the entire painting began to make sense. Overall, this was an enjoyable read; nothing to heavy, a perfect book for a bit of light, entertaining. reading. and I would recommend it to anyone interested in young adult fantasy/teen romance. Happy reading!
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One by LeighAnn Kopans {3.5 Stars}

One by LeighAnn Kopans takes the idea of superpowers and breaks it down in an interesting way. Really, all superpowers combine a couple of different powers together, so what if some people were born with only one of those smaller powers? What if you had the ability to make fire, but not the ability to resist or heal from fire? That would kind of suck, huh? I loved the powers that One introduces along with the fight of the “ones” to figure out how to fix their powers and become accepted into the Supers’ society. One is an independently published book, which showed a bit here and there, but over all I still recommend it as one of the higher quality indie-books I’ve read.
Note: I received One from the author in exchange for an honest review.

One by LeighAnn Kopans (One Universe #1)
Published by Author on June 11th, 2013
Genres: Sci-fi, YA
Length: 374 pages
How I got my copy: Author
IndieBound - Book Depository - Goodreads
Purchases made support this blog
When having two powers makes you a Super and having none makes you a Normal, having only one makes you a sad half-superpowered freak.

It makes you a One.

Sixteen-year-old Merrin Grey would love to be able to fly – too bad all she can do is hover.

If she could just land an internship at the Biotech Hub, she might finally figure out how to fix herself. She busts her butt in AP Chem and salivates over the Hub’s research on the manifestation of superpowers, all in hopes of boosting her chances.

Then she meets Elias VanDyne, another One, and all her carefully crafted plans fly out the window. Literally. When the two of them touch, their Ones combine to make them fly, and when they’re not soaring over the Nebraska cornfields, they’re busy falling for each other.

Merrin's mad chemistry skills land her a spot on the Hub's internship short list, but as she gets closer to the life she always wanted, she discovers that the Hub’s purpose is more sinister than it has always seemed. Now it’s up to her to decide if it's more important to fly solo, or to save everything - and everyone - she loves.
Strengths:
The super power system in One is just so cool. The power to fly requires both the ability to lighten your body enough to float and the ability to direct air currents to move around! All of the one powers that we encounter while reading One clicked well for me and I loved how clever Kopans was at coming up with the sub-powers required for a superpower to work correctly.
I was a bit annoyed while reading One at certain coincidences, but have faith! One explains all those overly convenient coincidences in the end ;-).
One has the same high quality writing that I expect from traditionally published books, which I was quite happy to discover, so have no fear on that front.
One takes place a bit in the future and the technology that is introduced fit well into that timeframe. Everyone is using electric cars, our smartphones have turned into wrist cuffs that can do everything for us (I think watches like this are already coming out this year! Spooky ;-) ).
Superpower stories always have the trouble of how they emerged, but One has a pretty good backstory to answer this. There is an explanation involving radiation poisoning causing mutations, etc, and it was enough to satisfy the sci-fi cynic in me, haha.
Weaknesses:
One attempts to use epigenetics to explain Ones and the emergence of separate powers during puberty. It made me twitch since it really didn’t line up with our current knowledge of epigenetics.
The romantic element ended up feeling pretty forced to me. There are some reveals that make this make more sense, but I still felt like Mer was just kind of an actress pretending to fall in love instead of actually falling in love.
A lot of the tension and angst for Ones comes from the fact that they aren’t considered good enough to work at the Hub where the Supers generally end up working. I got a bit frustrated that Mer didn’t even consider the option of getting a Normal job at a science facility, there are a lot of genetics programs out there currently so it seems likely there are in the future as well.
One still succumbed to the problem of many indie books with typos here and there. It wasn’t enough to completely ruin my reading experience, but definitely more than you would expect in a traditionally published book.
Summary:
One does a great job of adding another layer to the typical superpowers story with the partial abilities. While the romance plays a pretty big part in One and didn’t completely convince me, I enjoyed the sci-fi elements and the adventure for the most part. If you’re okay skipping over some typos here and there and are interested in the premise, definitely give One a read!

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When I was younger, I had these recurring dreams of flight. Well, not so much flight as hovering, with limited ability to move any direction but up. This is what Merrin Grey can do, her one power, where two are needed to be considered Super. She's just a One. Leigh Ann Kopans debut is a fun read for anyone who enjoys superhero stories as much as I do. Give me humans evolving to have superpowers and I'm generally a happy girl.

Kopans puts an interesting spin on the basic superhero formula through the idea that one power alone does not a superhero make. Logically, I don't really see how one power is useless, but, conceptually, it's a neat idea, a sort of paradigm shift. At any rate, there's always the self-fulfilling prophecy side of it: since the Ones are told that one power is useless, they probably won't investigate enough to see if that's really true.

In fact, most Ones do give up on their powers. Not so Merrin. Even though she's transferring from the high school for Supers to one for Normals, she's still convinced she will fly someday, that she'll develop the second power she needs to do so, propulsion or the ability to manipulate winds. She refuses to give up, because she believes her dreams of flight will come true. Meanwhile, she channels all of her anger and sadness at not having developed properly into her studies of organic chemistry, the better to someday cure herself of One-ness, and playing the drums, which soothes her rage.

At school, Merrin is instantly befriended by a super cute boy, Elias, who brings her into his little group of friends. Skeptical at first, Merrin realizes these are her people, when they reveal that they are all Ones, and all determined to keep using their powers. On top of that, they put together that, much like Captain Planet, their powers combined can make great things happen. Kopans does not skimp on the action sequences or the use of powers, which tends to be the number one downfall of superhero stories. What's the point of powers that don't get used?

Kopans also peppers One with references to classic superheroes, which will be sure to delight comic book nerds, though I imagine many of them went over my head. For the most part, One is fairly light and comedic, but, towards the end, things get darker. I really liked the upped stakes as the novel progressed, the amount of danger everyone was in and how hard it is to tell who to trust.

Merrin and Elias are very cute together, if a bit sappy at times. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get particularly into their romance, since they seem to have fallen in love much too fast. Now, I will say that I'm not sure how long it actually took them to fall in love, because I found the pacing in the novel confusing. What seemed like three consecutive days would be hinted at as being actually much longer. Essentially, I couldn't follow the passage of time, so it was hard to tell whether they instaloved or fell in love over the course of a few months. It also seems a bit over-convenient that the four Ones all are paired up to fall in love and complete one another, so I'd like to see further complexities added to those relationships later in the series.

Fans of Heroes, The Incredibles, or classic comic books will not want to miss Kopans' One. Though the series is as yet untitled, I do believe Kopans is planning additional books in this universe, and I would be curious to finding out what happens next. ( )