Hunted by Cheryl Rainfield

I just finished reading this book, Hunted by Cheryl Rainfield. I've read two of her other books and I wrote a blog post about one of them. But this book has got to be the best book I've read of hers, and that's saying something because I really liked Scars, I felt like I related to that book in a way that I had never related to any other. But this book is just so intense that I literally could not put it down.

This book is about this dystopian society in which some people are considered "Normal" and some "Paranormal". The Normals are just regular people, and the Paranormals are gifted with varying types and intensities of mind power. Some people have telekinesis, some people can control others' emotions and make that person empathize with the person controlling them. Some people like the main character Caitlyn can read other people's minds and have conversations with Normals and Paranormals alike without speaking aloud.

In this dystopian world, although the Paranormals are the ones with the mind power, it is the Normals who ultimately hold all of the control, or most of it at least. The Normals have control of the government and they spread propaganda telling the Normals that the Paranormals are a threat and that if they suspect someone of being a Paranormal they are to turn them in. Once a Para has been turned in to the government, they are owned by them. The Paras get trackers made of cobalt in their tongues because the mind power they possess is used on an electromagnetic wave length and the magnetic metal lessens their power and their defenses. Every registered Para has a Paratrooper that watches their every move and shocks them if they do something wrong. The Government Paras are forced to seek out unregistered Paras and turn them in or else be tortured for their failure.

It is because of these ridiculous views that the government portrays to its citizens, the insane laws and Caitlyn's own strong power that causes her and her mother to live their lives on the run. Always looking over their shoulders and always trying to blend in and failing to. Where the story starts they are on the road fleeing from the previous town they were in and being sensed by a Government Para. They lose them eventually with the help of their friend John, another Para who has only ever communicated with them through mind conversations. They have never met face to face.

To understand the whole story I should say that before all the Para hate started spreading Caitlyn and her mother lived with her father and her bother, Daniel. But years earlier, on the day known as Para Cleansing Day Caitlyn's father was killed brutally by a mob of Para haters, and Daniel was stolen away by a Government Para. So that left just Caitlyn and her mother to fend for themselves and to stay off of the government's radar. When Caitlyn lost her father it was as if the place where his presence was in her mind was ripped away leaving an empty space, and when she lost her father her mother lost the ability to use her Paranormal powers. Caitlyn described this as being worse than a Normal, she couldn't feel any thoughts or emotions coming off her mother, it was as if she was almost as far away for Caitlyn as her father was.

When Caitlyn and her mother move in to the next city, Caitlyn does something she's never allowed herself to do before: get close to other people. On her first day of school, Caitlyn is entranced by this boy named Alex, but he's a Normal. To Caitlyn it seems entirely ludicrous that a Normal could have this sort of effect on her. She has never felt so calm around anyone let alone a Normal. Also, on her first day there she meets this girl named Rachel who is a lesbian and has a crush on her. 

Caitlyn befriends the two of them and it's as of they're fighting over her, neither likes it when the other is hanging out with Caitlyn, and neither of them like each other. But they think they're hiding this from Caitlyn because neither knows that she is a Paranormal. 

A few weeks in, Caitlyn finally meets face to face with her friend John. The crazy thing is that as soom as she sees him she realizes that this boy is not John, he's her brother, Daniel. And he's a Government Para. She's completely baffled by his ability to hide the fact that she is his sister. As far as Caitlyn knew it was impossible for Paras to keep things from each other. Daniel tells her that he doesn't want her to tell their mother, and she doesn't, but then horrible things start to happen.

A bank robbery and other attacks done by Paras are claimed to have been done in the name of Teen Para, a blog run by Caitlyn. On top of that there is a murderer on the loose known as the Para Reaper. They sap the energy of other Paras until they die. Upon walking home one day, Caitlyn feels the attack and tries to save the Para, but she doesn't get there in time and the girl dies. She feels the slightest hint of the pleasure and glee the murderer gets from this and then it's gone, and instead she hears her brother telling her to get as far away from there as she can.

Along with the public attacks there is an attack in her school on Alex. He is stuffed in a locker, and only survives because Caitlyn hears his thoughts and gets a janitor to get him out. After searching through Alex's memories of being stuffed in the locker she realizes that it was Daniel, a few other Paras and some Normals' that they tricked into helping them do it. She realizes that Daniel is trying to have people get suspicious of her. And it succeeds, Daniel puts Caitlyn on the principal's radar. After that Daniel sets a fire in the drama room and Caitlyn realizes this because she can sense the students' panic. She knows that she can't go help them herself because that would be too suspicious, so she tells Alex and Rachel that she sensed the fire through a mind conversation. Rachel asks to go to the washroom and instead pulls the fire alarm. Once Caitlyn is out of the classroom, she heads straight for the drama room. They manage to get everyone out, but then they are questioned by reporters and Paratroopers. Caitlyn's excuse for why she knew there was a fire is that she smelled it from the classroom she was in. They were skeptical about it, but no one questioned that theory very profusely.

Caitlyn senses the danger of being found out by the reporters and troopers and even her own brother who is on the verge of outing her. She desperately calls out to her mother in the hopes that she will hear her although she knows it is unlikely since her powers are out of her reach, but surprisingly and impressively her mother manages to reign in her talent and comes to pick her up. This is when she finds out that Caitlyn has found Daniel. She is furious at Caitlyn for not telling her and rightly so. 

Caitlyn tries to explain to her mother that Daniel isn't the person he was years earlier and that he is now filled with hatred and pain. Her mother doesn't listen. She almost sets them on the run again, but Rachel and Alex come and help Caitlyn convince her mother to stay for just one more day. Caitlyn has realized at this point that Daniel plans on reversing the roles of Normal's and Paranormal's. He wants to ensure the control and power of the Paranormal's and his plan to do that is to kill anyone and everyone who is a Normal despite their views on Paranormal's and any Paranormal's who aren't clearly on his side, which includes Caitlyn.

So the next day Caitlyn hides out in the library and uses all of her strength to bring Daniel down. She does eventually, but then he disappears, and she is left to deal with the Paratroopers. When she exits the school ready to give herself up she is attacked. They shock her and beat her up, and the people watching this, Normal's and Paranormal's alike, protest and demand her freedom. She gets people so riled up that a revolution is started.

That's where the book ends. My concern with that is that this ending makes it seem as though everything is wonderful now: Normal's aren't afraid of Paranormal's; Paranormal's no longer need to hide. But that doesn't seem believable to me. It's only one city not the entire world. Not even the entire country. I wish there was a look into what happens a few weeks or months later. It would be more plausible if a month or two later the reader was told that although equality isn't yet found Caitlyn and the other supporters she's gained are working towards that being the end result.