Today we are the stop on the release blog tour for Kate Hawkings debut self-published novel “The Sphinx Project” with a review from Katie.

I think before we delve into this review, it is very important that I put a disclaimer here. I read this the day after I got all four of my wisdom teeth taken out, plus had a procedure performed on my jaw joint at the same. I was on all kinds of crazy pain killers and my face was still numb. What I remember reading and what I actually read may not be the same things. I was in my own little world completely.

Okay, let’s get started.

First of all: The Prologue. It’s interesting. It caught my attention. But it never actually connected to anything later in the story. There was never any allusion to it whatsoever that I could pick up. It was like there was a prologue for the sake of showing of that these chicks are bad ass and have mad skills, yo.

The actual story itself starts off very bleak.. not in a – this story looks crap – way, but in a –wow these characters sure do have it tough- way. In some ways I was amazed at how generally well adjusted these girls were when the things they had to go through were put into consideration. I guess that’s the humanity of the “mother” figure they had. I have to say that everytime Michaela mentioned “Mom” it made me think of “Mother” by Pink Floyd .. and then led me to think that hey.. maybe this mysterious “Mom” character is actually the mastermind behind all this, and Michaela is suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Well, this doesn’t happen as far as this book is concerned. Mom is just her Surrogate mother who stuck around and showed the girls love and compassion. Awww.

For the most part, the story flows fairly well, and I found myself being very caught up in it. There are a few awkward moments – whether it’s a scene transition.. or the characters do something/go somewhere just to make the next thing in the plot happen more conveniently. I realise this is what writing is all about, it’s just done a little awkwardly sometimes. I really found the laser tag tournament unnecessary. I know it was for them to earn money, but in a country torn apart by some kind of Zombie apocalypse, teamed up with the 2012 end of world theme running through it I found it a little odd that there would still be a laser tag tournament going on.

There is a bit of romance in here too – what YA novel doesn’t have some kind of romantic interest these days? I didn’t really cheer for Michaela and her love interest that much. I wasn’t against it, but it didn’t really seem organic. It was a bit of “I hate you for unspecified reasons”  -brooding glare- then proceeded to “Actually, yeah, nah. I do fancy you afterall! Cool banana’s!” –happy hand holding-.

Don’t get me wrong, despite all this it is a very enjoyable read. Not only this, you have to remember it’s self published and I think at the end of the day, I think if she had the same team of well paid editors that “published” authors do, the story would flow perfectly. As it is, for a self published effort, very impressive. I will definitely be reading the next instalment when it comes out.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5