DNF at 15%> I just couldn't get into the writing style. The short sharp sentences combined with multi-syllabic, run-on words and phrases just did not work for me.
Celerity's arrogance aside, she spent far too much time believing she was doing a vocab test and trying to convince us she was both funny and smart and failed at both.
Paragraphs such as:

He was strong and outdoors and a survivalist and had been through small plane crashes and jeep accidents. The rapid river overturns and near-drownings and bitten by a bull shark and broken bones and falls down waterfalls and jungle poisonings too many to count, and he looked like an old Laird Hamilton with wrinkles and skin problems. He would never die . He would outlive me. Although I never really thought that or thought about it, but if I had, that’s what I would have thought.

:Just didn't flow for me. The tenses and causes were all over the place and I have no idea who Laird Hamilton is.


Half the time I was trying to work out what she was actually trying to say and tbh I just didn't care very much.

Unfortunately I just could not get into this book. It may be one for other readers, but I was unable to finish it.

It wasn't my favorite but I did like the plot and enjoyed the characters. It was a different concept that the usual books with similar story lines which I appreciated.

3.75 stars

This book is a quick read and it kept me interested the whole time! I was thinking this was going to be a horror story, but it was more of a psychological thriller which was completely fine with me. The story reminded me of "Little Shop of Horrors" but without the music.

I enjoyed the whitty writing and the constant moving plotline. It was definitely not repetitive. One problem I had with the writing was the transitions between events and when Celerity was envisioning something vs actually doing the action.

Also, I understand that most of the book is Celerity's audio diary, but the quotations were missing whenever someone was talking. Usually you use ' ' instead of regular quotations. This made it difficult to know when someone was talking or not.

The other turn off I had with this book was the awkward and unnecessary female on female rape scene. It was very degrading and I actually reduced my rating due to this. I'm not sure why this was added, then later on, she is a sex crazed maniac. All of this felt forced into the storyline.

Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

DNF at 30%. It’s boring. The plot device (an audio diary) makes no sense and was a little irritating. What’s the point in that? Just make it a diary. Or an omniscient observer. I give DNFs three stars to be fair since I never finished.

Thank you for the opportunity to read an advance copy of Celerity by Scott Falcon. I really wanted to like this book. It was such an interesting concept, but more than once while reading I had to double back to confirm I was still reading the book I started reading. There were too many divergences which, had fewer of them been included they may have been more successfully executed. As it stands, I felt there were too many places where the story collapsed in on itself in a way that doesn’t work for the book as a whole. Celerity herself is confusing to me. I have a 20 year old daughter so there’s a ton of talk by young women in that age bracket happening around me at any given time, and they don’t talk anything like this character. In my opinion Celerity wasn’t believable as a girl in her early 20’s. She sounded more like a 30 year old man. And it detracted from what should have been an highly original, interesting take on a sci-fi-esque thriller.
Thank you again for the opportunity to read this book.

A hard and fast horror novel that takes on an incredible story and makes it its own, this book nearly about hits perfection. There's so much in here, from the social commentary to the camp, and there's such an interesting storyline. The blend of horror and thriller is marvellous, and I loved the development of Celerity as a fully-formed horror villain (is she a villain? I'm still not quite sure). There's so much to love in here, and I really appreciated the weird take that there was on the whole sexual element in here.

I really appreciated that this book delves into the way that fame affects and changes people, and also takes a view of how much money can change a person. I don't know quite what it was, but there's so much in here that I love. The weird Little Shop of Horrors vibe, the extortion bits that read like a spy movie, all of it was great. The only thing that pulled it down from a five star was the ending, which all happened too quickly and just wrapped up all too much too fast. I wish it had just taken its time a little more- but that said, this is still a cracker of a book.

This was quite an interesting and odd book. Told in a past and "present" tense from Celerity's journal using her father's research, but almost never a specified date unless noted by Celerity.. we are looking at how Celerity's life unfolds and how she gets where she ends up.
I'll admit, it did take me a while to actually finish this book because it did not end up being something that I'd normally read, nevertheless I did get it finished and think if you are a fan of sci-fi, sports and feminism then you'd possibly like this.


Thank you Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

Falcon’s new novel is an interesting read and although it kept me invested and enjoyed large portions of the story, there is something that left me slightly cold that I am having difficulty putting my finger on.

The novel starts out in a very staccato fashion with a plane crash and an agent who starts playing the tape of the victim of this crash. We get reporters commenting on the loss of someone enshrined in celebrity culture. This is very quick and fast editing which is a bit jarring but works ok. When we get to the agent listing to the tapes of Celerity, this is where the novel really takes off.

Written in the first person, Celerity tells her own reality which talks about her rise to fame and the complications of this. We learn on how she becomes the first woman on a national football game and she uses pop references to enhance her story telling. This is fascinating and works extremely well until we get to the last part. We then go back to the agent and then we get a third person narrative that does leave the reader slightly bewildered and lost. I understand what Falcon is trying to do and for the most part he does succeed but it does come at a price.

The characters are all well written but compared to Celerity, they are somewhat ghosted by her strong presence. As this is written in the first person, Falcon has excelled to make Celerity an interesting three dimensional character and likable. Writing a first person narrative is tricky because you have to make them likable and if you are going to spend that much time with someone and they use I a lot, they can become annoying very easily. Falcon does not do this. The story of Celerity is what makes this novel work and fully enjoyed this.

Overall, it is a good book with some flaws that does not quite give the pay off one would hope for but at the same time it is not a total let down either. 90% of the book is clever, a good read and interesting. It kept me intrigued to the very end and enjoyed it for the most part. Some passages such as jumping to the agent and the conclusion fell a bit flat for me but really enjoyed it over all. It’s a good read for the most part

Celerity /sɪˈlɛrɪti/ noun [mass noun] archaic or literary
Swiftness of movement.
ORIGIN late 15th cent. : from Old French celerite, from Latin celeritas, from celer ‘swift’

Celerity is in her first year at UCLA, hoping to earn a track scholarship for her second. She ran track for her school, and now she runs for the university, but here she’s not the best. She’s come as far as she can with the self-help tapes and high school coach, but she’s hit a wall – always the bridesmaid and never the bride.

When her father dies, she moves back to the house she’d shared with him as a child. He’d been an explorer and a botanist, forever shooting off to one tropical jungle or another, but most recently he’d been spending a lot of time in the jungles of the Darién Gap. When Celerity checks to see what he was last working on, she finds that he’s destroyed his research and left strict instructions for her not to try to follow on with his work. She doesn’t listen.

He’d also tried to destroy his plant samples but missed a tiny seedling, leading her out to the Darién in the search for something that can help her breakthrough her wall and into the big league where she belongs. She forgets that every silver lining has a cloud.

The idea behind this book is a decent one, but it has two major problems. Firstly, the protagonist is thoroughly unlikeable. Not in an unlikable-but-interesting way, but in a complete brattish, I-want-so-I-get way. I spent most of the story wanting to slap her and send her to her room. Her only true redeeming feature is her dog.

My second major problem is the format of the book. We start at the end and then the rest is told mostly through found footage from a diary she’s kept. I get that this format was new and interesting at some point in the past, but it’s been absolutely done to death.

I do actually have a third issue, but it’s a spoiler, so I’ll keep it for the end of my Goodreads review where I can hide it, and let readers decide if they want to read it. It’s probably not a major problem for most people, or even a slight one, but it hit my pedant bone.

All in all, Celerity is an average read, which is a shame. It could have been a lot more.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was certainly interesting. Celerity discovers a mysterious plant that her dad was studying. She finds that it has powerful effects and ends up breaking history with her speed.
The plot intrigued me. I loved reading about the plant and the science part of it, but certain parts were a little bizarre. I had a hard time following what was going on in the story.
On the plus, this was different from anything I’ve read before.

Celerity is a college student who is a second or third runner for the UCLA track team and someone who really is unknown in the big world. Her father is research scientist who has traveled the world but on his death bed he begs his daughter to not follow in his line of work. She does not think much of it until she notices some things missing in one of her fathers many greenhouse's and mysterious plant start to grow. Why would he not want his daughter to follow in his steps this statement gets Celerity's curiosity going and will lead her to area between Panama and Costa Rica an area like no other with plants, animals and insects not found any other places in the world and in particular a particular pitcher plant that is very large. After seeing natives partake of some of the extract she decides to try some herself and her world changes.
You know everyone wishes to be rich and famous, known by the world sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for as she finds out when she becomes the fastest woman in the world. The opportunities literally explode overnight when the story starts to come out. As with every story there always seems to be a downside to the good side of up and she will come across a few. The premise of the story was interesting and this book was a little better then average but there were times i felt the author tried to hard with to many adjectives and there were some story lines or events that could haves been left out as they are a little far fetched but of course it is a work of fiction. I would rate this book at 3.5 stars. It was a fast one day read

I wanted to like this book.

I really wanted to like this book.

Celerity is a book about a young woman who discovers a magical substance from a brand new sort of weird carnivorous plant and starts taking it as a performance enhancing drug.

This book, ostensibly, had my name written all over it.

This book is terrible.

I liked the premise. I liked the idea of a young woman infiltrating mainstream sports. And of course, I love weird plants. But the politics in this book are hateful and disgusting. Celerity - the woman - is a terrible, terrible person - and while I have no problems with an unlikeable and unreliable narrator (see my enjoyment of both Breaking Bad and the works of HP Lovecraft), Celerity is a terrible person in the way that men think women are terrible. And of course it's no surprise at all that this book was written by a man, and a man who clearly has no idea how to write young women. I like to think I was "subversive" at that age, and maybe I even fell prey to the "not like other girls" idea, but this goes well beyond that. Celerity manages to, at the same time, be a caricature of the shallow rich girl and also entirely removed from the way that women in their early twenties think and act. And, oh yeah, she casually drops slurs and hates immigrants. How cool is that. What a rad and outside the box person.

This book was a waste of good science and a good premise, and a waste of my time. And I'm even more mad because I can't even slap one star on it and be done - it earned that second star by having so much potential. But then it took the other three, rolled them up, held them to a lighter, and threw them in the bin.

Well, this was a weird one.

Told via audio journal entries after our 'protagonist' has died in plane crash - this is a look at how far people will go. Celerity is an average track start until she finds her deceased father's botany research - and - without much thought, shoots herself up with a serum from a jungle plant.

She then becomes the Usain Bolt of female runners and goes on to be the first female in the NFL.

And that's where the problems start.

It's an interesting concept but I just....didn't care. I found it all a bit ridiculous. But...maybe that's the point.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Super creative ideas here: and of course, the minute someone says don't do it, there is nothing more urgent to be dome by the other person.
In this case the daughter of a botanist inherits research and the warning was to his daughter, a regular person who liked to run.
Be careful what you wish for, is the old curse. She found what she thought she wanted and with it came a whole bunch of other things she may not have wished for.

It's an entertaining story and an entertaining read.
My favorite, however, is Bolt.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. The blurb looked interesting so I gave it a shot. But WOW! I really enjoyed it. Read it all in one night! I liked the format of the book. The audio recordings concept worked well. It seems like almost like 2 different stories, the "before' and "after". It's witty and funny and halfway thru takes a darker turn but it all works together. There are parts that seem like a science/history lesson and I really enjoyed that. All in all, a great story line, sympathetic characters, and great read!

Celerity's father, a botanist, has just passed away and his last wish for her is that she does not follow his studies. She is not sure why, so of course she decides to find out what he was studying in the Darién jungle. Well let me backup a bit. Celerity is now deceased also. She died in a plane crash and her agent is reading her journal entries which explain how she went from Celerity, a student and decent runner to Celerity record breaking runner and NFL player. Her father had discovered something no one had ever discovered before and even though he told Celerity to not follow his research, she does just the opposite. While I enjoyed this book, So much happened SO fast. We are, along with her agent, viewing her journals so time is not exactly relevant, but for me everything happened a tad fast. As a reader you have to keep reminding yourself you are not dealing with the typical time frame and unless Celerity documented the days, a good bit is passed by. Over all this was a good read and I am thankful to NG, the publisher, and the author for allowing me to read this story.

Celerity is just an unusual book. Celerity is in a plane crash. Not giving anything away. That's how it starts. As her life unfolds through the research of her agent we find out that she was the first female NFL player, a guitarist, and the fastest woman alive. Hmmm. So how did that happen.

Through files from her laptop, her agent reads her journal of how she took her father's research and made herself into what she becomes. It's hard to say more than that, but I will say I really liked the way this was all brought together.

Celerity is an unusual book, it was an interesting concept - the main character is an average track star - nothing groundbreaking until she discovers her scientist/botanist's father's work - and ingests the serum from a plant he located in the depths of the jungle.
Without giving the plot away, Celerity becomes renowned worldwide as the fast female on the planet. She joins the NFL as the first female player on an all-male team but with her newly acquired wealth, comes a whole host of problems.

Cleverly written and a great unexpected twist at the end.