Book Review: The Dissension Process

Jamie has superpowers. They came to her completely unexpectedly, but once she discovered them, her life changed. Now, she looks for others who also have powers in the hopes of absorbing them and using them herself. It’s the only thing keeping her in the here and now instead of wallowing in the sadness of her losses. Unfortunately for Jamie, she finds herself delving deeper and deeper into dangerous situations. If she isn’t careful, she will put herself and the few people she has left in danger.

The Dissension Process by Markus James is a bit of a mixed bag with some good elements that I really enjoyed and some elements that I didn’t care for. It wasn’t what I originally expected based on the description that comes with the book. That being said, it does start off fairly interesting, and it turned out to have a pretty engaging main concept to the story.

I really liked the idea of the superpowers. The book revolves around characters that have discovered some kind of power and have passed into Jamie’s life in some way. There are several battles that include use of multiple powers, and I think James did a good job creating a wide variety of powers and making those battles exciting. Sometimes the characters use their abilities in their everyday life which added to the overall world created in the book. Jamie, being the main character, has a more complex power. She can absorb and effect other people’s abilities. I enjoyed seeing how she engaged with her powers and how it affected her decisions.

Another strong point for this novel is its representation of characters that come from rough childhoods or are seen as the outliers is society. I like how it shows the evolution of each person. Many of the characters demonstrate growth from a point of struggling, so a point of thriving. It is a great message, and the events in the story do show the progression nicely.

I also enjoyed the idea of the different plot lines that were weaved throughout the novel. There are about four different plots that are constantly affecting the story, and Jamie, that get resolved at some point in the book. I like each of the different plots; however, I do feel that the story would have been stronger if there had been one main plot or problem for Jamie to deal with instead of several. The book started strong but lost focus about a third of the way through the book. It made it hard as the reader to understand where the book was going.