A Dragon's Review: Impostor By Susanne Winnacker

There are no spoilers in this review.

Being an avid book lover, I’ve decided to start writing reviews of either really good or really horrible books I’ve read.

According to the Chinese horoscope, my birth year is the Dragon and I think that sounds really cool. In honor of the first horoscope I looked through this year, I hereby christen this new series of review articles, A Dragon’s Review.

Impostor by Susanne Winnacker follows the life of Tessa, a unique teenager in a world where mutations have occurred in people all over. Those people are called Variants because they have special variations of abilities which regular humans don’t possess.

The Forces with Extraordinary Abilities (FEA) is called in due to suspicion of Variant involvement after series of brutal murders.

Tessa is an agent for the FEA, a branch of the FBI. She has the ability to absorb the DNA of anyone she makes physical contact with and then take on their appearance at will. She is tasked with replacing Madison, a victim of the serial killer who died in the hospital. Her job is to pretend to be Madison so that she can gather information and help catch the killer.

My first impression of this book was that I would get to read something about an awesome teen female spy with powers. I was sorely disappointed. Tessa was literally the most irritating character in the entire book, followed closely by Alec, her love interest.

If you can imagine an X-Men meets Wattpad Teen Mystery scenario, this book is it.

Firstly, according to the book, Tessa has been training to be an FEA agent for 2 years. Two years is a long time. You would think that she had actually learned something of actual value to utilize on her first mission. On the contrary, Tessa proves to us that it is entirely possible to be useless at fighting, investigating and even making use of your own powers.

All through the book, she only succeeds in getting herself into trouble, either whilst chasing after Alec when she’s meant to be investigating brutal murders or whilst following shady characters around.

Of course, I can relate to the difficulty of the case she was handed. It would be sickening to have to pretend to be a dead person and deceive their parents, friends and siblings. However, for most of the book, Tessa kept on complaining. I got sick and tired of her constant guilt over everything. It’s your job. Do it! She spent more time complaining to herself than actually thinking about the murders.

"That was one of the moments I wished I were just a normal girl. A girl who could go shopping and hang out with her friends instead of doing the kind of work that would terrify a normal person."

You want us to feel sad for you? Nope, you’re too whiny. Imagine this kind of passage filling up 50% of the book and you have Impostor.

Another thing that really pissed me off was the love arc shoved awkwardly into the story. In a circular story, the love arc was a triangle. I cannot stress enough how strange it was. Susanne Winnacker tried too hard to make us want them together, but Alec was a horrible guy anyway. He’s one of those weird protective types that has a girlfriend but still wants you anyway. Ugh.

Over all, it wasn’t absolute rubbish. Susanne Winnacker does the bare minimum in giving us a nice plot twist. Of course, even then Tessa screws up, but the point is she tried to keep the mystery of the serial killer going for about 250 pages. I admire that strength.

If you’re a fan of teen romantic super-powered books with cliché heroines, I’d say go ahead and read this book!