Review: Icons by Margaret Stohl

Author:   Margaret Stohl

Format:  Pages:  432
Release Date: May 7, 2013
Source: ARC/Gift
Publisher:  Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Age Group:  YA

Genre:  Sci-fi/Dystopian 

Available:  Amazon/Barnes & Noble

Summary from Goodreads: Your heart beats only with their permission. Everything changed on The Day. The day the windows shattered. The day the power stopped. The day Dol's family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting. Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside -- safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can't avoid. She's different. She survived. Why? When Dol and her best friend, Ro, are captured and taken to the Embassy, off the coast of the sprawling metropolis once known as the City of Angels, they find only more questions. While Ro and fellow hostage Tima rage against their captors, Dol finds herself drawn to Lucas, the Ambassador's privileged son. But the four teens are more alike than they might think, and the timing of their meeting isn't a coincidence. It's a conspiracy. Within the Icon's reach, Dol, Ro, Tima, and Lucas discover that their uncontrollable emotions -- which they've always thought to be their greatest weaknesses -- may actually be their greatest strengths. Bestselling author Margaret Stohl delivers the first book in a heart-pounding series set in a haunting new world where four teens must piece together the mysteries of their pasts -- in order to save the future.

Can you say Ah-mazing?  Yes, Icons by Margaret Stohl was just that, ah-mazing!  It was creative, unique and just enough suspense to keep you at the edge of your seat.  Icons is totally different from the Beautiful Creatures trilogy that Margaret Stohl co-wrote with Kami Garcia, but in a good way.  Icons is a sci-fi/dystopian story about aliens (Lords) destroying Earth and a group of teens who were destined to save the world and fight back against the Lords.

Incons takes place in the future, almost a century in the future.  One day, called The Day, aliens came to earth and killed millions of people.  The aliens, called Lords, set up Icons which are large "space ships" in 13 different parts of the world.  Each of them send out some sort of electric pulse that doesn’t allow anyone near them and if they try, it kills them on the spot.  Pretty creepy, huh?  So you first hear about Dol (Dolores) and Ro.  Dol was with her parents when The Day came and killed her parents.  The weird thing is that she survived, even though everyone around her didn’t.  Ro survived The Day too and they both have a special bond because of it.  Then one day, The Embassy comes looking for Ro and Dol and takes them to the Embassy where they conduct several tests on them.  They realize that both Ro and Dol have special powers that activate with emotional triggers.  While there they discover that there are two other hostages with similar powers.  Together they discover what their true destiny is and even though they don’t like what the futures holds, they believe that it's something that they need to do to in order to save humanity and take back what was taken from us, Earth.

Icons is an incredible book and I totally recommend it.  It was fast paced and I found myself not wanting to stop because it was just that good.  You know when you read a book and you have to put it down for whatever reason and you wait until you finish the chapter or for a part that is a little slow?  Well, I couldn’t find one so I found myself devouring each paragraph, page and chapter.  My one and only complaint is that I have to wait too long for the next book.