I'll start off by letting you know that it was the cover that originally caught my attention. After reading Levitating Las Vegas, I'll say the cover actually works quite well. Unfortunately, few other things in this book worked as well for me.It starts off with Holly at the age of fourteen, she works as a bikini clad show girl in her father's magic act and has a hard time shaking that image off the stage. She's finally caught the attention of her swoon worthy crush, Elijah, who has asked her to the school's formal dance. But, it's that night that both Holly and Elijah are diagnosed with a delusional disease. Mental Adolescent Dysfunction or MAD. Really? This was strike one for me. It doesn't even seam like a believable condition with that name. Exactly what is dysfunctional and will it only last through puberty then go away? There is no background given to the reader or to the two who suffer it, yet they don't question it. Just pop the pills like good little sheep.Fast forward something like seven years and now we catch up with Holly, still working as a bikini clad showgirl for her father's magic show and Elijah who works as a carpenter in the same casino. Now in their early twenties they still pop pills on a daily basis to keep the delusions of telekinesis and mind reading (respectively) at bay. But the pills have run out. Of course the casino pharmacy (do casinos have that?) is the only place that even know what these pills are. Strike two...the pills are called Mentafixol (mental-fix-all). Umm, how dumb are these kids?So, strike one and two are both pretty minor, all things considered. I can get past some silly little things if you deliver me great characters involved in a great story. Was that delivered? Well, not so much.The potential is there, I swear it. But I don't review based on potential. When you combine some pretty fun powers, let's face it mind reading and mind changing powers can make for very intriguing story lines, with the sexiness and drama of Las Vegas you should have a great story. However, Levitating Las Vegas felt almost spastic. There were too many characters and too much politics without the background for making me connect with them. The story itself jumped all too quickly from one character to another which just made it frenetic.The sexiness I spoke of...it was too forced. Holly prances around for about 95% of the book in her stage bikini, literally. I have to imagine even Las Vegas show girls take a minute to put on a pair of yoga pants and a tank top before hopping the City bus home at night. The other 5% of the book she's in an actual dress but it's a micro mini and she isn't wearing underwear. It was borderline ridiculous. Strike three.What did I enjoy about Levitating Las Vegas? The mind reading and mind controlling. I think Echols did a good job in playing up how easily these powers could be used to manipulate pretty much everything in life. Some of the 'battle' scenes were pretty exciting due to them.Also, Shane. Shane is not a major player in this book but that did not stop him from being my favorite character. While Holly, Elijah and Kaylee seemed a little all over the place, Shane was smooth, easy, steady and bit mysterious. He plays a slightly bigger role toward the end and it did nothing but confirm my thoughts that he needed to be in this book more.The bare bones of the plot were unique. The fact that you have a group of people who develop special abilities and a casino that is basically a cover to safe house these people, is pretty spectacular. It just lacked in the delivery.Needless to say, I struggled with Levitating Las Vegas but I'm not ready to give up on Echols as an author. There is some magic (he he) here and I'm it's executed better in other books.
