bookjunkie724's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
notlikethebeer's review against another edition
2.0
The podcast elements of this book were really good, and it definitely kept my attention very well. I wish it had focused a bit more on the podcast itself to be honest?! Overall, though, I don't think it was that great. I didn't like Kaylee at all, and none of the other characters were featured particularly much. It was confusing and at some points really obvious, there wasn't much mystery or intrigue. Altebrando's great, but this is not her best.
missprint_'s review against another edition
3.0
"What if life was all about letting go?"
Kaylee doesn't remember much from when she was really young. She knows her biological mother is in jail but the details of her arrest for killing Kaylee's brother and the trial are memories from another life.
Kaylee is happy now with her adoptive parents and her perfectly normal life. She's a rising star on the school softball team and she is working on a plan to attract the attentions of her longtime crush. Simple.
Until a woman shows up at Kaylee's house wanting to interview her for a podcast investigating Crystal.The Possible podcast is going to spend a season looking into the telekinesis claims that made Crystal a media sensation as a teen, her trial after her son's death, and what she's like now in prison.
Kaylee is desperate to be special. To be noticed. Being involved in the podcast seems like the perfect chance to see if maybe, just maybe, she might have some of Crystal's powers. As the podcast starts to air Kaylee gets exactly what she wants. But she does't count on the bitter taste of notoriety or the secrets that begin to surface when she looks into her own past in The Possible (2017) by Tara Altebrando.
In her latest thriller Altebrando taps into the wide popularity of investigative podcasts as she and her characters ask a simple question: "What if?"
Kaylee is a totally reliable narrator but she's also eager to be swept away and believe that some of the hype surrounding Crystal, and by extension herself, might be true. Kaylee is athletic, a little self-centered, and striving for that elusive better, more popular, and generally more appealing version of herself. In trying to embrace telekinetic powers and familial connections that may or may not exist Kaylee realizes that she has to let go of what she wants other people to see when they look at her and focus on being herself in whatever form that takes.
The Possible is a tense, fast-paced story focusing squarely on Kaylee and the podcast. Most of the novel is narrated by Kaylee with pieces of the story being told in newspaper articles, podcast excerpts, and interview transcripts. While Kaylee reaches some conclusions for herself by the end of the story, the narrative stops short of actual answers leaving readers to decide the truth for themselves in this gripping story. Perfect for fans of psychological thrillers, true crime, and anyone who's ever asked themselves "what if . . . " Recommended.
Possible Pairings: The Devil You Know by Trish Doller, Breaker by Kat Ellis, The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle, The Midnight Dress by Karen Foxlee, My Sister Rosa by Justine Larbalestier, We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, Soulprint by Megan Miranda, Pretending to Be Erica by Michelle Painchaud, Suicide Notes From Beautiful Girls by Lynn Weingarten
*An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*
Be sure to check out my interview with Tara!
Kaylee doesn't remember much from when she was really young. She knows her biological mother is in jail but the details of her arrest for killing Kaylee's brother and the trial are memories from another life.
Kaylee is happy now with her adoptive parents and her perfectly normal life. She's a rising star on the school softball team and she is working on a plan to attract the attentions of her longtime crush. Simple.
Until a woman shows up at Kaylee's house wanting to interview her for a podcast investigating Crystal.The Possible podcast is going to spend a season looking into the telekinesis claims that made Crystal a media sensation as a teen, her trial after her son's death, and what she's like now in prison.
Kaylee is desperate to be special. To be noticed. Being involved in the podcast seems like the perfect chance to see if maybe, just maybe, she might have some of Crystal's powers. As the podcast starts to air Kaylee gets exactly what she wants. But she does't count on the bitter taste of notoriety or the secrets that begin to surface when she looks into her own past in The Possible (2017) by Tara Altebrando.
In her latest thriller Altebrando taps into the wide popularity of investigative podcasts as she and her characters ask a simple question: "What if?"
Kaylee is a totally reliable narrator but she's also eager to be swept away and believe that some of the hype surrounding Crystal, and by extension herself, might be true. Kaylee is athletic, a little self-centered, and striving for that elusive better, more popular, and generally more appealing version of herself. In trying to embrace telekinetic powers and familial connections that may or may not exist Kaylee realizes that she has to let go of what she wants other people to see when they look at her and focus on being herself in whatever form that takes.
The Possible is a tense, fast-paced story focusing squarely on Kaylee and the podcast. Most of the novel is narrated by Kaylee with pieces of the story being told in newspaper articles, podcast excerpts, and interview transcripts. While Kaylee reaches some conclusions for herself by the end of the story, the narrative stops short of actual answers leaving readers to decide the truth for themselves in this gripping story. Perfect for fans of psychological thrillers, true crime, and anyone who's ever asked themselves "what if . . . " Recommended.
Possible Pairings: The Devil You Know by Trish Doller, Breaker by Kat Ellis, The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle, The Midnight Dress by Karen Foxlee, My Sister Rosa by Justine Larbalestier, We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, Soulprint by Megan Miranda, Pretending to Be Erica by Michelle Painchaud, Suicide Notes From Beautiful Girls by Lynn Weingarten
*An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*
Be sure to check out my interview with Tara!
vespurr's review against another edition
2.0
The truly unfortunate thing about this book is what great potential it had. I feel like the CONCEPT was great. Podcasts are so relevant right now, and a teenager with a potentially psychic mother in prison for murder? What a plot! I personally listen to a whole range of both true crime and paranormal podcasts and felt this book COULD HAVE been great.
It wasn't. It was roughly 300 pages long but so much of it was taken up by large-print snippets of text messages and one liners. It read extremely fast, but that isn't always a good thing. There didn't seem to be enough actual story, and it was completely underdeveloped.
Kaylee is bratty and self-centered, and none of the other characters are fleshed out well enough to become attached to them.
Additionally, I realize this is YA, but you don't have to constantly vomit up pop culture references to seem relevant.
This book had so much potential, but it turned out to be extremely underwhelming and failed to deliver. It was far too 'short' in terms of content (I read it cover to cover in a matter of a couple hours), and I finished it feeling sadly disappointed. To be honest, I considered just calling this a DNF, but the quickness of it made it easy to finish despite it's shortcomings.
The one positive I can say for this book is the cover is absolutely stunning. It does have probably the most beautiful cover art I have seen all year so far.
It wasn't. It was roughly 300 pages long but so much of it was taken up by large-print snippets of text messages and one liners. It read extremely fast, but that isn't always a good thing. There didn't seem to be enough actual story, and it was completely underdeveloped.
Kaylee is bratty and self-centered, and none of the other characters are fleshed out well enough to become attached to them.
Additionally, I realize this is YA, but you don't have to constantly vomit up pop culture references to seem relevant.
This book had so much potential, but it turned out to be extremely underwhelming and failed to deliver. It was far too 'short' in terms of content (I read it cover to cover in a matter of a couple hours), and I finished it feeling sadly disappointed. To be honest, I considered just calling this a DNF, but the quickness of it made it easy to finish despite it's shortcomings.
The one positive I can say for this book is the cover is absolutely stunning. It does have probably the most beautiful cover art I have seen all year so far.
michelle_pink_polka_dot's review against another edition
4.0
I really liked the book-- the characters though??? I'm starting to think frustrating characters that I kind of hate are a trademark of Ms. Altebrando. Still, an addicting book that made me question if supernatural elements were happening.
The Possible was an interesting book that intrigued me because of that maybe supernatural element. Was Crystal (Kaylee's bio mom) able to move things with her mind? Was it all fake?? I love reading a whole book not knowing if it's going to be something OTHER.
While I really liked the story and just HAD to know what was going to happen-- the characters?? Not so much. Kaylee was harsh. She doesn't know if she inherited powers from her bio-mom or not, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that she inherited sociopathic traits from her. Not to say that Kaylee is evil, but she definitely doesn't have a lot of empathy or thoughts about how things will effect other people.
The other characters weren't much better. There are the 2 best friends (Chiara and Aiden), a love interest (Bennett), and the podcast woman (Liana)-- and literally NONE of them are the type of characters that you root for. As soon as I thought one of them was going to be that person-- BAM, they did something callous and indifferent that made me be like: NOPE.
In spite of that, I still really liked this book. It reminded me a lot of [b:The Leaving|26073074|The Leaving|Tara Altebrando|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1464526602s/26073074.jpg|42308587], which I read last year. It was full of characters that I was just NOT feeling, but the story was compelling enough to keep me reading and wanting to know.
The ending was interesting, but I definitely thought it could have been better. Like with The Leaving, I was a tad underwhelmed. Some of it was a bit far-fetched, but getting there was a fun and page-turning ride.
The best part-- I loved all the text, script, and news article elements. I'm a huge sucker for epistolary elements in books.
The worst part-- OMG Tara Altebrando totally dissed Pittsburgh (my hometown city). Kaylee flies to Pittsburgh for a brief visit, and she makes it sound like it's a place people go to fail. Not cool.
OVERALL: The story, not the characters, drove this book. I got really invested in the MAYBE supernatural elements-- and the sort of murder/mystery. I didn't vibe with any of the people in this book, but I didn't really need to??
My Blog:
The Possible was an interesting book that intrigued me because of that maybe supernatural element. Was Crystal (Kaylee's bio mom) able to move things with her mind? Was it all fake?? I love reading a whole book not knowing if it's going to be something OTHER.
While I really liked the story and just HAD to know what was going to happen-- the characters?? Not so much. Kaylee was harsh. She doesn't know if she inherited powers from her bio-mom or not, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that she inherited sociopathic traits from her. Not to say that Kaylee is evil, but she definitely doesn't have a lot of empathy or thoughts about how things will effect other people.
The other characters weren't much better. There are the 2 best friends (Chiara and Aiden), a love interest (Bennett), and the podcast woman (Liana)-- and literally NONE of them are the type of characters that you root for. As soon as I thought one of them was going to be that person-- BAM, they did something callous and indifferent that made me be like: NOPE.
In spite of that, I still really liked this book. It reminded me a lot of [b:The Leaving|26073074|The Leaving|Tara Altebrando|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1464526602s/26073074.jpg|42308587], which I read last year. It was full of characters that I was just NOT feeling, but the story was compelling enough to keep me reading and wanting to know.
The ending was interesting, but I definitely thought it could have been better. Like with The Leaving, I was a tad underwhelmed. Some of it was a bit far-fetched, but getting there was a fun and page-turning ride.
The best part-- I loved all the text, script, and news article elements. I'm a huge sucker for epistolary elements in books.
The worst part-- OMG Tara Altebrando totally dissed Pittsburgh (my hometown city). Kaylee flies to Pittsburgh for a brief visit, and she makes it sound like it's a place people go to fail. Not cool.
OVERALL: The story, not the characters, drove this book. I got really invested in the MAYBE supernatural elements-- and the sort of murder/mystery. I didn't vibe with any of the people in this book, but I didn't really need to??
My Blog:
savannahsprice's review against another edition
2.0
*I recieved an ARC of THE POSSIBLE via the publisher through a Goodreads giveaway.
(2.5 stars)
So, this book has a really interesting premise. Like, really interesting. Telekinesis? Podcast? Dark past? Sign me up!
Sadly... it did not give as promised.
I will now dive into the reasons I was disappointed.
W R I T I N G:
The main problem I had with THE POSSIBLE was the writing. It's so... simple. Incredibly simple.
The author has seemingly never heard of "show, don't tell"; I think there was only one sentence where the description wasn't like "She has brown hair." or "He is cute."
There was also a lot of "He said", "She said". PSA: there are other words to indicate that someone is speaking besides for "said". Despite the overuse of "said", I also lost my way in a lot of the conversations; I would have to rewind and think this person said this line, then that person said the next... to follow who was saying what. None of the characters' dialogue really made them stand out (as in no specific character was sassy or dull or had extremely bad grammar. They were all just average).
Besides for the descriptions, we (the readers) were assumed to know what a lot of things are. I know next to nothing about softball, and I still don't. I had never heard of a granny pod before this novel, and it was described once and then never mentioned again.
I think this novel could have been developed more and even earned another half-star in my book if the writing was a little more complex. It seems to be written for a younger audience because of the simplicity, but the content (especially some of the needless cursing) is for teens.
C H A R A C T E R S:
Kaylee. Basic name, bordering on boring character. She wasn't fun at all; I can't say that I truly enjoyed reading about her. She also made some decisions regarding relationships that I wasn't a fan of ().
Aiden. I hate to use the same word twice, but nothing describes Aiden as well as the word basic. He's your typical YA love interest: in love with the main character & will do anything for them, tall, available 24/7, etc. I just wasn't entertained & I didn't have a deep connection.
Chiara. She's my favorite by far. She's also a bit typical, but at least she had personality and reacted realistically to Kaylee's actions. I'm sad that she wasn't a bigger character.
Liana. I still think she's shady. That's all I gotta say.
O T H E R:
I just realized that the cover is supposed to be one of Kaylee's snowglobes. I have to admit, that's a cool detail.
The plot was also everywhere. I couldn't dedicate a whole section of this review to talking about it, but this novel didn't end up being more about the telekinesis, which is kind of the impression I got/what I was hoping for.
Also, there were so many stereotypes present in this novel. Despite the interesting integration of supernatural things and adoption and things like that, the characters weren't anything special and they were your "average" teens (are dumb, are always going after the popular guy, play one sport, etc). That really annoyed me.
All in all, I feel like the simplistic writing really hurt the potential of this book. It was okay, but it's nothing I'd want to reread.
(2.5 stars)
So, this book has a really interesting premise. Like, really interesting. Telekinesis? Podcast? Dark past? Sign me up!
Sadly... it did not give as promised.
I will now dive into the reasons I was disappointed.
W R I T I N G:
The main problem I had with THE POSSIBLE was the writing. It's so... simple. Incredibly simple.
The author has seemingly never heard of "show, don't tell"; I think there was only one sentence where the description wasn't like "She has brown hair." or "He is cute."
There was also a lot of "He said", "She said". PSA: there are other words to indicate that someone is speaking besides for "said". Despite the overuse of "said", I also lost my way in a lot of the conversations; I would have to rewind and think this person said this line, then that person said the next... to follow who was saying what. None of the characters' dialogue really made them stand out (as in no specific character was sassy or dull or had extremely bad grammar. They were all just average).
Besides for the descriptions, we (the readers) were assumed to know what a lot of things are. I know next to nothing about softball, and I still don't. I had never heard of a granny pod before this novel, and it was described once and then never mentioned again.
I think this novel could have been developed more and even earned another half-star in my book if the writing was a little more complex. It seems to be written for a younger audience because of the simplicity, but the content (especially some of the needless cursing) is for teens.
C H A R A C T E R S:
Kaylee. Basic name, bordering on boring character. She wasn't fun at all; I can't say that I truly enjoyed reading about her. She also made some decisions regarding relationships that I wasn't a fan of (
Spoiler
like going immediately to Aiden and being all "Oh, I suddenly realize I love you" after Bennett was out of the pictureAiden. I hate to use the same word twice, but nothing describes Aiden as well as the word basic. He's your typical YA love interest: in love with the main character & will do anything for them, tall, available 24/7, etc. I just wasn't entertained & I didn't have a deep connection.
Chiara. She's my favorite by far. She's also a bit typical, but at least she had personality and reacted realistically to Kaylee's actions. I'm sad that she wasn't a bigger character.
Liana. I still think she's shady. That's all I gotta say.
O T H E R:
I just realized that the cover is supposed to be one of Kaylee's snowglobes. I have to admit, that's a cool detail.
The plot was also everywhere. I couldn't dedicate a whole section of this review to talking about it, but this novel didn't end up being more about the telekinesis, which is kind of the impression I got/what I was hoping for.
Also, there were so many stereotypes present in this novel. Despite the interesting integration of supernatural things and adoption and things like that, the characters weren't anything special and they were your "average" teens (are dumb, are always going after the popular guy, play one sport, etc). That really annoyed me.
All in all, I feel like the simplistic writing really hurt the potential of this book. It was okay, but it's nothing I'd want to reread.
valleylore's review against another edition
3.0
[b:The Possible|31450942|The Possible|Tara Altebrando|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1472702681s/31450942.jpg|52153776] is shockingly clever. It really gets you thinking about how perspective can and will change what people believe. If somebody sees something from a different angle than how you saw it go down, they could very well consider you a liar because that's not how they saw it and they know that they themselves aren't lying so it has to be you who speaks false truths.
Going into this, I wasn't sure exactly what I expected from it but by the end I knew it to be better than I presumed. Not only is the writing style unique and easily relatable, but the visual appearance such as the texting scenes were spot on. So why the three-star rating? Well, that's down to a few things.
Firstly, I thought it odd that upon hearing about a podcast being made of Kaylee's birth mother so many of the people in her life turned against her. Not only her two best friends but her coach, fellow students, her teachers, etc. I understand that some of them had other reasons for turning their backs but it still seemed a bit sketchy. These people genuinely believed Kaylee was capable of using a paranormal force whether it be to trip them up, slice textbooks, smash light bulbs, break tree branches, predict the outcome of a roll of a dice or move things with her mind. She even got shelved from the softball team because they believed her to be using telekinesis in order to pitch so well. How unrealistic. What's worse is that some of those people were adults - like, thirty, forty (?) years old.
Secondly, I didn't like the romantic interest Kaylee had in Bennett; it just didn't seem authentic. Sure, she daydreamed about him and they even made out but it just all felt... forced. And don't even get me started on how out of the blue Kaylee's realisation of her heart truly belonging to her best friend was. That right there came completely from nowhere ― no hints throughout that perhaps she liked him, or anything in that nature. It was just, 'Well, Bennett doesn't really like me. I guess I like Aiden now? After all, we danced at prom'. I don't know, it was weird and then she's all, 'I love you' to him. Like... okay?
Anyway, I think I'm rambling but overall, the plot was enjoyable, Chiara's character was amazing and the payback on Crystal was great. 3/5 stars!
viktorian's review against another edition
2.0
tl;dr: I loved the idea of this, and the plot itself was great from start to finish. The main character, on the other hand, was almost unbearable. An unlikable protagonist isn't a deal breaker for me, but she wasn't an anti-hero or complicated; she was shallow, selfish, kind of naive despite thinking she was cynical, and for the first two thirds of the book, literally mean about everyone except for the popular boy she has a crush on, "just because she does" and the effect is terrible. While she did experience some emotional growth, it was far too late. Add in some weird pacing and an overused stylistic device that went from being effective to trite to annoying AF, and there was just no saving it. Which sucks, because the plot and premise was so good. I feel like if it was heavily edited, keeping the plot mostly in place and changing the narrative style, it could be a fantastic book, but unfortunately, we're stuck with Kaylee .
themadmaiden's review against another edition
2.0
The main character was really annoying. Which, at least she grew from but it was hard to go along with her.
The story just didn't really hit me. It was a quick read but not very interesting. I guessed that she was going to be blamed for killing her brother but I thought that might be the actual twist, not just the mom being the utter worst.
It had some good ideas skirting around there but I don't think they every really lived up to it. Also the romances were incredibly boring and I did not care.
The story just didn't really hit me. It was a quick read but not very interesting. I guessed that she was going to be blamed for killing her brother but I thought that might be the actual twist, not just the mom being the utter worst.
It had some good ideas skirting around there but I don't think they every really lived up to it. Also the romances were incredibly boring and I did not care.