The Awakening is the continuation of Chloe’s story in The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong. Here’s a summary from the author’s website:

If you had met me a few weeks ago, you probably would have described me as an average teenage girl—someone normal. Now my life has changed forever and I’m as far away from normal as it gets. I’m a living science experiment—not only can I see ghosts, but I can raise the dead without even trying. Trust me, that is not a power you want to have. Ever. I’m running for my life with three of my supernatural friends and we have to find someone who can help us gain our freedom back before the Edison Group finds us first. Or die trying.

So Chloe, Derek, Tori, and Simon are becoming professional fat burners as they’re on the run from the Edison Group. I wasn’t as impressed with The Awakening as I had been with The Summoning. I felt like the second book was a lot of filler, and not a lot of problem solving. There were only a few scenes that were really intense. One was where Chloe almost gets her face cut up by a street girl. Then later when a bullet grazes her as they run from the Edison Group. I found Tory even more annoying than she was in the first book, probably because she got a lot more dialogue. She basically whines and complains the entire time. I was hoping she’d get shot honestly. I’m hoping for more out of the third book. Even though this book felt like filler, it was still decent. I’m giving it a C grade. It still helps make my commute entertaining.

This book gave me goosebumps from start to finish. Here’s what the back of the audio book case says about it:

My name is Chloe Saunders and my life will never be the same again.

All I wanted was to make friends, meet boys, and keep on being ordinary. I don’t even know what that means anymore. It all started on the day that I saw my first ghost—and the ghost saw me.

Now there are ghosts everywhere and they won’t leave me alone. To top it all off, I somehow got myself locked up in Lyle House, a “special home” for troubled teens. Yet the home isn’t what it seems. Don’t tell anyone, but I think there might be more to my housemates than meets the eye. The question is, whose side are they on? It’s up to me to figure out the dangerous secrets behind Lyle House . . . before its skeletons come back to haunt me.

It’s the first book in the Darkest Power series, and I’m so happy there is more than one book! The first book leaves off on a cliffhanger that I won’t reveal. I will say that I can’t wait to ready what happens next.

The character development that Kelley Armstrong wrote helps you really visual each character. You can see Tori as the bratty teen who hates Chloe, when deep down it’s obvious she’s still jealous. You can almost see poor Derek’s  acne that Armstrong describes.
The scene that got to me the most was when Chloe gets trapped in the craw space. She’s tied up, with no lights, and all she can hear are the ghosts around her. Hopefully there is no asbestos in the crawl space either because on top of all her other problems, she’ll need a mesothelioma lawyer when she finally gets out. But the worst thing she does is in her panic, she accidentally summons two ghosts back into their human bodies. They crawl towards her and actually grab her legs. I think at one point I actually screamed out loud! It’s a vivid scene.

I give this book an A+ and I will definitely be checking out the next book in the series, The Awakening.