Aimee Agresti’s ‘Illuminate’ isn’t as luminous as advertised

“ILLUMINATE: A GILDED WINGS NOVEL, BOOK ONE,” by Aimee Agresti, Harcourt Children’s Books, Hardcover, March 6, 2012, $17.99 (ages 12 and up)

Haven Terra is driven. She’s smart and works hard both inside and outside of school. She spends most of her time outside of school at the hospital where her “mom” is a nurse —Haven was found abandoned when she was very young, and Joan has been her guardian ever since.

But as driven as Haven is, she’s more than a little surprised when she’s awarded a prestigious internship at the Lexington Hotel in Chicago. She didn’t even know the internship was available until she was handed it practically on a silver platter.

The Lexington’s just undergone an extensive renovation and the hype surrounding its grand opening is astronomical. Haven and two of her classmates are being added to the staff of drop-dead gorgeous glamazons to help out where needed. Under the watchful eyes of the captivating hotel owner, Aurelia Brown, and her second-in-command, Lucian Grove, Haven and her friends get to work.

The hotel is beautiful, the food gourmet, the staff impeccable, but something’s not right. And the longer Haven stays, the more uncomfortable she becomes. And then there’s the mysterious book bearing her name. The first time she opened it, it was blank, but now words forming commands grace the pages. Haven has to keep her head because the devil’s in the details.

I really, really wanted to love “Illuminate” — it has a beautiful cover and I enjoyed the flapper era Chicago history that’s woven throughout — but instead my verdict is more of an “enjoyable but forgettable.”

Aimee Agresti is a decent writer. I immediately found Haven to be compelling and the idea of interning at a hotel intriguing. The pacing, however, is way off, with the book dragging in some places and rushing in others. And when it comes to development, some of Aimee’s characters are paper-thin, telegraphing plot twists way in advance of when they should have been revealed. Some of those plot twists are a little hard to swallow as well.

My biggest complaint — the cover has almost nothing to do with the book! If you’re going to stick a girl in a pretty dress, at least make it agree with the main story line. It feels like false advertising, and if the book is as good as a publisher says it is, then it’s unnecessary.

Despite my frustrations above, I still enjoyed “Illuminate” enough to finish it. Haven is a character worth sticking with. I suggest checking a copy out from the library first before purchasing this one. If you find it’s worth reading again, purchase it. As for me, I’m hoping its follow-up will show marked growth and make rereading “Illuminate” worthwhile.