Review: Cycles by Lois D. Brown

Reading Level: Young Adult
Publisher: Self Published
First in a series
*This book was gifted by the author in exchange for an honest review*

She remembers things that never happened.
She's a stranger in her own home.
She always knew she was different.
She just didn't know why.
Until now.

Renee Beaumont is about to die . . . again.

That short synopsis doesn't really explain much but that makes sense because this book is so different and hard to explain. Plus it's a mystery so it can't give away much. Basically this book starts off with a 13 year old girl named Renee narrowly escaping death in an accident involving her neighbor’s horse. When she wakes up in the hospital she finds out that she needs a blood transfusion and that she has a type of blood that the hospital has never heard of and doesn't have. But luckily for her Dr. Dawson (her neighbor) just happens to have some of her very rare blood in his basement. He says that he has it because he helped her out with a science project but Renee is almost positive that is a lie. So Renee with the help of her best friend Sam searches to uncover the truth of what really happened, who Dr. Dawson really is and ultimately who she is. From there everything just spirals out of control and there is so many twists and secrets and mystery and it was so much fun to read.

This book is told from 3 different perspectives Renee, Sam and these mysterious journal entries. I really liked that you got to see the story from two different views and I kept going back and rereading the journal entries trying to figure out what they had to do with Renee and Sam's story. I thought Renee was really cool and I liked how she never wanted to believe the worst in people. I also felt really bad for her since she had to go through so much. Sam was probably my favorite. I related to him since he was such a big bookworm and I really liked the relationship between him and Renee. But I do think they should be more than friends :). I really liked Dr. Dawson even though he was suspicious throughout the whole book he was really there for Renee and never tried to hurt her he was actually there for her more than her parents were so I never thought he was that bad. I thought it was great trying to figure out if the rest of the characters were friends or foes.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and I can't wait to read the sequel though sadly it doesn't come out until next year :(. I would have given it 5 stars if it hadn't taken me so long to finish it (that was probably my fault I stopped reading it for a while and read 2 other books). Once I got into it I didn't want to stop reading because I was so confused that I had to finish it and figure out what was going on. This book will definitely keep you guessing though your guesses probably won't be anywhere close to the truth and trying to figure out to trust along with Renee and Sam. I would highly recommend it if your looking for a mystery with a definite creep factor.
4.5/5 stars.
-Marissa