Red Handed, by Gena Showalter

I heard quite a bit of hype about this book/series from multiple friends on Shelfari and the like. Someone even used it as a Memory Monday, which kind of made me laugh when I realized it was only published a few years ago. However, it does seem to be one of those books that people read and loved that got lost in the cracks. While I'm not a huge fan of the cover (kind of intense in a psychotic way, yes?) I was intrigued by the synopsis and the huge following it created and gave it a shot. Actually, I gave it a shot a couple of months ago but never got around to reviewing it as I had such a hard time deciding what grade to give it.

Red Handed, by Gena Showalter
Young Adult, 2006

from fantasticfiction.co.uk:
Phoenix Germaine has been trying to earn back her mother's trust after going into rehab and kicking Onadyn -- the drug of choice for New Chicago teens. But when a party in the woods turns into an all-out battle with the most ferocious aliens Phoenix has never seen, she's brought home in what appears to be an Onadyn-induced state. Hello, reform school.
Except, what her mother doesn't know is that Phoenix has just been recruited to join the elite Alien Investigation and Removal agency, where she'll learn to fight dirty, track hard, and destroy the enemy. Her professional training will be rigorous and dangerous, and the fact that one of her instructors is Ryan Stone -- the drop-dead gorgeous, nineteen-year-old agent she met in the woods that night -- doesn't make things any easier. Especially when dating him is totally against the rules....

Gena Showalter is better known for her romance novels, and of late her Intertwined series, none of which I've read. But I must say I was incredibly impressed with the world she created in this series. This futuristic world with a variety of new ideas is entirely believable - a feat in and of itself. And while thrown at first by Phoenix's previous drug addiction, I appreciated that she wasn't perfect, that she'd overcome it and become a better person for it. I did want more of a story about aliens and less about the training, but I think that's why it's a series and not a stand alone. And while the sexual tension was well done, I wasn't a big fan of that part of the epilogue (I don't want to give away spoilers.).

Note: Not appropriate for younger readers, even perhaps younger teens - I'd say 16 and up ish. There's swearing, but I honestly forget how much, drug use, sexual tension, and there is sex, but it's more something they talk about that happened instead of describe.

Graded...and here's the hard part. Overall I'd say a B, but the PG-13 stuff was enough that I'd say that dragged it down to a B-.