Age Group/Genre: Young Adult/Science Fiction, Apocalyptic

As if Alexandra Lucas’ anxiety disorder isn’t enough, mysterious holograms suddenly appear from the sky, heralding the end of the world. They bring an ultimatum: heed the warning and step through a portal-like vertex to safety, or stay and be destroyed by a comet they say is on a collision course with earth. How’s that for senior year stress?

The holograms, claiming to be humans from the future, bring the promise of safety. But without the ability to verify their story, Alex is forced to consider what is best for her friends, her family, and herself.

To stay or to go. A decision must be made.

With the deadline of the holograms’ prophecy fast approaching, Alex feels as though she is living on a ticking time bomb, until she discovers it is much, much worse. (Cover and synopsis from Goodreads.)

Consider and I just totally clicked. I have anxiety, and the main character, Alex, has anxiety. There are these holograms that show up all over the world that say they’re humans from the future and that all the Earthlings need to come to their planet to survive, and I’m like COOOOOOOOLLLLLL. My kind of plot! And with action starting right from the beginning, I was hooked right away.


The anxiety in the story is really well done. Everyone’s anxiety is different, but Alex’s felt very similar to mine at times. And while I’m always anxious about reading about anxiety because it could make me anxious (try saying that five times fast!), I was able to get through Consider without having any kind of anxiety attacks of my own. The only thing I disliked about all the anxiety parts is that I was reading an ARC and there were all these incredible lines about anxiety and I want to quote them all in my review but I can’t! But if you have anxiety, just be a bit forewarned: it’s described very well.


I had plenty of theories as to what would happen while I was reading Consider, but I also really appreciated the fact that these characters were really imagining this new planet very complexly. Some characters made up their minds very quickly as to whether they’d go to the new planet or stay on Earth, but many of them, especially the main characters, seem to really think about what this new planet could be like, and how it could be extremely different from what they know. Basically they aren’t just thinking, “I wonder if it’s nice there?” They’re really thinking about what could happen if they stepped through that vertex. And I really like how the world changed a lot after these holograms appeared. Things changed in ways that I never would have even thought of, but they make so much sense. I won’t go into details because of spoilers, but it was just really well thought-out.


I only had a few issues with Consider. For one, I was very annoyed with a couple of the characters. Her dad is really a huge jerk and so is her brother. I mean, I kind of get why her dad is how he is (I’m not excusing his actions, just understanding why he does things), but her brother basically acts like her anxiety isn’t real and she should just get over it when HE KNOWS WHY SHE HAS IT. It was just really frustrating, as someone who has anxiety, to see this character basically dismissing anxiety as her just trying to get attention or something.


The other thing that really bothered me was the multiple occurrences of slut-shaming, virgin-shaming, and people thinking of themselves as a tease because they didn’t want to do more than kiss. And with the exception of one guy (who was a grade-A jerk) who called someone a bitch because she wouldn’t mess around with him, these instances were between two girls. They would call each other out for their actions, shaming each other for what they had or hadn’t done and it really, really bothered me. Yes, I know this happens in real life, but in books, when someone slut-shames or virgin-shames someone, I expect them to be called out on it, or at least realize that they were wrong. And there really was no sense of the characters realizing it was wrong in Consider.


Bonus Points…


Kristy Acevedo gets some of my Bonus Points for the following reasons:

• Doctor Who references (50,000 points)
• Radiohead reference (100,000 points)
• Harry Potter references (50,000 points)