ZENN DIAGRAM

A girl with the ability to read people’s emotions meets a boy who defies her expectations in this debut novel.

Eva Walker, a white math genius and loner, has an inexplicable power: she sees visions of people’s emotions and the histories behind them whenever she touches a person or objects they have handled. For this reason, she avoids tactile contact with people so that she is not affected by their emotional distresses and the subsequent feelings of helplessness they inspire in her. She plans to go to college to study neuroscience so she can discover the reasons behind her mysterious condition and lead a normal life. Her plans almost get derailed, however, when she meets Zenn, a cute new boy with dark looks (he is a quarter Vietnamese and three-quarters unspecified), while tutoring math. Though accidentally touching Zenn’s jacket gives Eva a powerful and disturbing vision, their mutual attraction grows and intensifies. They learn through a series of dei ex machina that they are actually entwined in a shared tragic history, which may explain their unique connection. Though their romance is sweet, the plot that carries it forward is frequently contrived. The author’s voice comes through too often to find Eva’s voice entirely convincing, and her character development near the end feels rushed and forced.

A light read for those looking for a meet-cute with a twist.