Book Review- Numbers

I just finished reading Numbers by Rachel Ward for an Around the World Tour.

From Goodreads:

Whenever Jem meets someone new, no matter who, as soon as she looks into their eyes, a number pops into her head. That number is a date: the date they will die.

Burdened with such an awful awareness, Jem avoids relationships. Until she meets Spider, another outsider, and takes a chance. But while they’re waiting to ride the Eye Ferris Wheel, Jem notices that all the other tourists in line flash the same number. Today’s number. Today’s date. Terrorists are going to attack London. Jem’s world is about to explode!

The plot for this story is very intriguing.  Imagine being able to tell the date that people are going to die--and being responsible for deciding whether or not to tell people.  I was engrossed by the idea and couldn't wait to read it.

But once I started, I just didn't care about it that much.  The main characters really didn't do anything for me.  Jem seemed like an awful teenager.  I know she had been through a lot, but she didn't even seem to care to try to get herself out of it.  And Spider didn't seem all that great either.  Yeah, I could see where he had a big heart, but why did he have to smell so bad?  What was the purpose of that in the story?  I guess I started to care a little bit about them to end, but still not enough to redeem the whole story.

The plot was okay.  There were some parts that were just out there.  Like how did the tattoo face guy know where they would be escaping to?  And I think they would have been caught much quicker.  A lot of the story was predictable, including the end of the story with Spider.  I do have to say that the very last sentence got me by surprise and does make me want to read the next book in the series.

I gave this book a rating of 3/5.

This book fulfills items in the following challenges:
2010 100+ Reading Challenge: 79
2010 Young Adult Reading Challenge: 59
2010 Debut Author Challenge: 22
ARC Reading Challenge 2010: 57

*FTC Disclosure: I was given this book for free for an honest review as part of the Around the World Tours.