Significance by Shelly Crane

I had a bunch of new books downloaded onto my Kindle, and when deciding which to start with was instantly drawn to Significance. The overview looked like an interesting concept on the whole imprinting shindig, so read it I did!

I don't know about you, but what I love about the romance aspect of a book is the whole build-up of the relationship. Whether the couple first start off in a love-hate relationship or they're total opposites, or even how at the start they want to rip each other's heads off, it's a really important part to how they come together and keeps you in much anticipation!
Unfortunately this book lacked all of these moments. Not once did I find myself wanting to read on a few more chapters to see how their dialogue plays out, or out of curiosity for that much-awaited first kiss.
I understand this is becaused of the whole imprint thing. Basically, when you imprint, it's already all butterflys and rainbows. There's no turmoil at all. Another thing I noticed was the lack of reflection that you'd expect Maggie to go through in her situation - once she'd imprinted, she basically accepted the whole thing on a plate! To me it would have been much more interesting to see some conflicting thoughts about the imprinting.

Usually whilst reading YA romance, it's great being able to swoon along with the heroine. Now i'm not saying Caleb wasn't swoon-worthy, it's just... I felt the whole physicality and feeling of their interaction was a dud. Plus, I don't know how you guys feel about PDA, but... making out against a tree in front of herd of your close relatives? It's a no-no. And this kinda thing happened, continuously. In fact, I think they had more steamier interactions in public than they did whilst they were alone. So yeah, by the end of the book I was more like 'meh' with their chemistry.

Now, onto more of the storyline. Wait.... where's the storyline?
I was confused at what I was meant to have acheived by the end of this book. All I had gathered was that:
1) imprinty-people (I can't remember what they're actually called since it was hardly mentioned) have 2 types of sex. That's right - two. One is mind-sex, and the other the plain 'ole physical kind.
2) they have neat abilities.
3) their enemy-type people made a half-assed attempt at kidnapping Maggie.
 So yeah... the most interesting aspect is of the mind-f**k.

Onto the characters...
The main character Maggie is quite relatable which I gathered from the first few chapters, and to me that's always a good thing when reading. Her whole take on her dad's depression and her mum leaving is really true to life, and through the book im glad Crane kept including parental factors, in so many books its easy for authors to just introduce the family and then you never hear from them again through the whole book! You get a lot more insight on Maggie's character through her family interaction, especially with her father which I think is great.

Caleb is... really nice. I like how he's meant to be this superhuman type person but he's still a cute average-joe. He also has to deal with his own decisions, like studying something for the sake of his family rather than his own choices, it definately makes him more down-to-earth and likeable. His family are really cute aswell. Speaking of family, I expected his cousin Kyle to play a more prominent role in the book, not just an infatuated side-lines guy. I actually ended up feeling sorry for him, but ofcourse the imprinting takes the fore-front everything so he's left being someone who troubles the relationship.

All in all, I think personally for me this book is too cutesy and doesn't have enough edge. I picks up on things which are confusing to the flow of the book, like the importance of Maggie's ex-bf Chad, and how he just keeps cropping up, more so than Kyle does.
It was unnecessarily long considering the content, and I don't usually criticise the length of a book so that's saying something. As for the relationship side of it, I think i'm more left on the outside looking in, as about halfway through I just wasn't feeling it anymore.
On the plus side, the concept is quite interesting, and i'm curious about some of the issues that are brought up, for example Maggie and Caleb's abilities.

Eager for more? Personally, I doubt this book will be on my mind for days to come. I'm not particularly keen on getting my hands on the sequel, as I feel that there isn't much more to give in terms of the development between Maggie and Caleb, the only new things i'll be getting is some tying up loose ends and resolving issues surrounding the imprints hooha.