Seize Today by Pintip Dunn (Review + Giveaway)

October 9, 2017July 16, 2019 Deanna | OkieDreams

SUMMARY: Seventeen-year-old Olivia Dresden is a precognitive. Since different versions of people’s futures flicker before her eyes, she doesn’t have to believe in human decency. She can see the way for everyone to be their best self-if only they would make the right decisions. No one is more conflicted than her mother, and Olivia can only watch as Chairwoman Dresden chooses the dark, destructive course every time. Yet Olivia remains fiercely loyal to the woman her mother could be.

But when the chairwoman captures Ryder Russell, the striking and strong-willed boy from the rebel Underground, Olivia sees a vision of her own imminent death…at Ryder’s hand. Despite her bleak fate, she rescues Ryder and flees with him, drawing her mother’s fury and sparking a romance as doomed as Olivia herself. As the full extent of Chairwoman Dresden’s gruesome plan is revealed, Olivia must find the courage to live in the present-and stop her mother before she destroys the world.

SEIZE TODAY Review

Seize Today is the final book in author Pintip Dunn’s Forget Tomorrow series. It’s a powerful story with an even more powerful message. Love. Family. Sacrifice. Courage. Forgiveness. Five incredible themes that are expertly woven throughout the series, but even more so, throughout Dunn’s latest release, Seize Today.

Deep, engaging characterization combined with an intriguing, gripping, and unique storyline make Seize Today one of the best books I’ve read all year. Olivia Dresden is stronger than she knows and braver than she thinks, and her love for humanity goes far deeper than anyone would suspect. Ryder Russell is far more cynical, and with good reason, but he has no desire to ever see his troubling future memory come to pass. And he’ll do whatever he has to do to keep his family safe, even if it means trusting someone he isn’t sure he should.

This book is such a phenomenal read. The characterization and writing are so fantastic that from the moment I started reading, I was hooked. Riveted, in fact. It’s a brilliant story and the perfect end to an incredible and unforgettable sci-fi romance series. I could go on for days about all the different strands and dazzling little nuggets contained within this book, but I have a strict policy not to write spoilers in my reviews and I have never come closer to wanting to break that policy than I do writing this review. But I won’t. Because I firmly believe that people should be able to discover incredible reads as they read and that’s never been more true than it is with this book.

If you love young adult sci-fi romance, if you love dystopian and time travel, Seize Today and the entire Forget Tomorrow series is an incredibly well-written, well-thought-out story journey that will transport you to another time, another world, where anything is possible…and the consequences of making the wrong choice could—and often do—prove deadly.

5 Stars

You can also read my exclusive interview with Pintip Dunn here

Book Excerpt

From SEIZE TODAY:

Eleven years earlier…

I pull the lever of the cage, switching the tunnel onto a different track, trying to confuse the mice.

I know exactly how the future will play out, of course. I know which mice will fall down the trap and which ones will smack into the see-through glass wall. I know which mice will get hopelessly lost. I even know which ones will run the maze correctly on the very first try.

I like watching them anyway. They wriggle over one another like worms, and their whiskers twitch when they’re at a corner between two paths. But what I like most is how they come to me when I call.

Picking up a mouse, I run my fingers over its soft fur and warm body. It looks at me with unblinking pink eyes, and I think it could be my friend.

Of course, I can see which mice will come, so I know which ones to call. Rodents are predictable like that. Humans, not so much. They have too many wants, too many feelings. I don’t see any one future for people. Rather, I see them all—every single pathway their futures might take, flickering before my eyes.

So I have to guess which of my human classmates will want to play with me. Most of the time, I guess wrong.

“Are you bothering my mice again?” a little boy’s voice says. “Fates, Livvy. How many times do I have to tell you? Leave them alone!”

Startled, I let go of the mouse and look up at Tanner Callahan, the other six-year-old who hangs around the scientists’ labs. I’m here because my mom’s the head of the Future Memory Agency, or FuMA, and he’s here…I guess ’cause he has nowhere else to be.

He’s got black hair that pokes up in the back, and his skin sticks too closely to his bones. I thought this meant he wasn’t eating enough, but MK, our child-minder, said that grief over his parents’ deaths had burrowed holes through his resources.

This makes me think of the mice digging through the straw, and my chest aches. I flash forward to his futures. He still has hundreds of branches remaining, but in most of them, one thing is the same: he will be sad and lonely until he kisses our classmate Jessa ten years in the future.

I don’t know why kissing should change anything. But I do know how it feels to be lonely and sad.

We don’t have to be like this. I could be his friend. I just have to figure out the right thing to say.

“Jessa and I are going to rule the world one day.” It can’t hurt to bring up the girl he smushes lips with. Maybe if he thinks she and I are friends, he’ll like me, too. “You know Jessa, right? The girl with the teardrop eyes? She’s my best friend.” Not true. I think Jessa only talks to me because she’s nice. But he doesn’t have to know that.

“Oh yeah? Well someday, I’m going to be the inventor of future memory,” he shoots back. “And then we’ll see who’s more important.”

I bite my lip. That wasn’t what I meant. I wasn’t trying to brag or compare or compete. The futures containing our friendship begin to fall away, one by one. I guessed wrong once again.

The FORGET TOMORROW Series

Giveaway

For $25.00 Amazon GiftCard

*Now Closed*

About PINTIP DUNN

Pintip Dunn is a New York Times bestselling author of YA fiction. She graduated from Harvard University, magna cum laude, with an A.B. in English Literature and Language. She received her J.D. at Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the YALE LAW JOURNAL. Pintip’s debut novel, FORGET TOMORROW, won the RWA RITA® for Best First Book. In addition, it is a finalist for the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, the Japanese Sakura Medal, and the MASL Truman Award. THE DARKEST LIE was nominated for a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award. Her other books include REMEMBER YESTERDAY, the novella BEFORE TOMORROW, and GIRL ON THE VERGE. She lives with her husband and children in Maryland. You can learn more about Pintip and her books at pintipdunn.com