Becoming - The Balance Bringer

Debra Kristi

Release Date: March 9th 2015

Ghost Girl Publishing

Ana’s world is falling apart. What she thought were dreams start entering her waking life. Eerie shadows hunt her. Her dream guy becomes reality. And strange new abilities begin developing. Ana is becoming something other.

She is determined to find answers, but where to turn? Her mom and best friend are keeping secrets. Her older sister is dead and exists only in her dreams. And her younger sister thinks they are goddesses.

Above all else, dark forces will stop at nothing to crush Ana – to keep her from restoring balance. To keep her from…becoming.

Is love and blood and sisterhood enough to stop the dark secrets and power from destroying her?

Live in reality. Play on the other side. 

Debra Kristi is a paranormal and fantasy writer. She lives in Southern California with her husband, two children and and three schizophrenic cats. She’s a full-time kid chaser, video game maker's wife, and muse prompted writer. Unlike the characters she often writes, she is not immortal and her only super power is letting the dishes and laundry pile up. When not writing, Debra is hanging out creating priceless memories with her family, geeking out to science fiction and fantasy television, and tossing around movie quotes. 

“She writes because the dead girl told her to.”

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For starters, I really must say that this book and its characters surprised me a lot. Positively, without anyspace for doubt.

I must admit, I was a bit afraid to start this book. First, because it would be the first one that I was reading from an unknown author and this is always a risk. Second, because while I was reading, I noticed that the chapters where a bit too long for what I usually like. At first I was somehow disappointed with the book and with the main character, Ana. It seemed to me the she was a young girl too confused and weak. She was constantly suffering insults from her arch-enemy Skylar and never, but never retaliated. But well, I'm glad I did not give up the book, because it was how I got to known Ryland, Crystia, Kaia and Jaden, just my favorite characters throughout the story.

As I said, the beginning is just a little too slow, with too much fillers. It describes everything and anything, and besides the scenes when Ana his dreaming, that make you suspect that something is not right, the plot is a bit confusing and difficult to get in it.

Now, let's talk about this story more seriously? Let's go. 

Ana (la) is the main character. She is Crystia’s and Kaia’s sister (the last one died a few years back). She's an eighteen-year-old victim of bullying and constant humiliation by Skylar, a schoolmate. Why does she never respond to her teasing? I do not know, but If it was me, I could not bear it. In fact, the story starts, precisely, with one of these aggressions. At a school ball, Skylar and his gang decides to humiliate Ana by throwing at her a red fruit paste. That night is the big turnaround in Ana's life: Jeremy passes away (the actual (almost) boyfriend) in a car accident.

Two years have passed since that tragic night and Ana is getting more distant from everyone, always with the idea that she was the real one to blame for Jeremy’s death. However, not everything goes wrong. She becomes Ryland’s best friend, the same one who helped her on the night of the accident and that has been, since then, her greatest support along with Crystia, the other sister. After all, she continues with her normal life, working at her mother’s flower shop and designing beautiful jewellery pieces with her crystals. On a day like many others, something happens that takes her out of her comfort zone. She begins to have vivid dreams that changes her routine. First there were dreams in which she was in a place called Hiddenkel, but with each passing day the characters of her dreams take shape in real life. At school she feels something is chasing her. Something dark and sinister. It is then that she and also the reader get to know Jaden. A mysterious young man with jade-colored eyes.

It's through her determination to find answers to her questions and problems that she begins to change, both physically and mentally. She's stronger, faster and more powerful than she thought. And it's Ryland and Jaden that go with her, in her mission to return to Hiddenkel, rescue Crystia and Kaia and help reach out Dreyia. Her evil aunt that wants to destroy her and her family in order to govern both human and dream world.

I loved how the author managed to, from one moment to the next, surprise us with an Ana more determined. Making the characters more intense and creating breathtaking fight interactions. 

Something that annoyed me deeply in Ana was her emotional indecision, now she is magnetically attracted to Dohlan (her love interest in dreamland) or now she is intensely in love with Jaden, her love interest on earth and in Hiddenkel. What I do not understand is why she was so undecided regarding her feelings, as she was fully aware that Dohlan is mean as a snake and that just wanted to pull her to Hiddenkel and that Jaden was who had been destined for her, many many years ago. I do not understand and this is one of the reasons why I don't sympathize much with Ana, but with the other characters. At one point of the book I could no longer stop reading and not even the long chapters took me the will to finish the book and see if they really were able to defeat the Dark Shadows, allies of Dreyia and herself. Do they do it? In this first book, they achieve a small victory against the forces of evil, but surely will be on the second volume that we will have the real war.

I will be looking forward to know how they will defeat Dreyia and be victorious.