If this book isn’t the Next Big Thing in YA paranormal obsession, then it damned well should be. I can already see it being cast for the big screen, to the vociferous jubilation of the Hunger Games/I Am Number Four/Mortal Instruments set. I visualize, say, Miranda Cosgrove as our extra-sensory narrator, Alison, and perhaps Britt Robertson as the pretty, popular and perfect Tori Beaugrande, whom she killed with her mind…

Let me back up.

Our story begins in confusion, and takes a long while to resolve itself into a clear narrative. This is a conceit that has been known to bug me no end, that perpetual fugue state in which we are often kept while slowly the truth is revealed to us, but in this case, the mystery of what has happened to Alison, why she’s in a mental institution and what the hell is going on with numbers somehow being colorful, the stars singing and lies quite literally tasting bad… well, that is just a whole lot of fun, and not a puzzle you’d want to have resolved for you too quickly.

Our heroine (for such she is, despite her own fears) finds herself in that mental institution following a break with reality that had her ranting to anyone who would listen that she had somehow caused Tori Beaugrande to disintegrate before her very eyes. Beautiful, popular and talented, there has always been something about Tori that has just annoyed Alison; she calls it Tori’s Noise, and it is that incessant buzzing, coupled with the usual kind of adolescent girl hurt-feelings-and-drama, that she believes has led to this wanton, if uncontrollable, act of murder, and she is quite wracked with guilt over it.

The town, of course, is dutifully out searching for the missing girl while the local police suspect Alison of malice aforethought. And also a hot young neurological researcher from South Africa arrives at the facility in which Alison is being held -- along with an assorted and largely incidental group of other troubled, teenaged patients -- and soon becomes fascinated with her astonishing brain chemistry.

What is so fascinating and astonishing about Alison’s brain? It would hardly be fair of me to tell you. But it’s a condition that is fun to guess at, even more fun to have confirmed, and one so awesomely out of left field that it’s hard to imagine how our author managed to catch on to it.

From being a kind of K-PAX/Girl, Interrupted hybrid, this book takes a wholly unexpected turn in its dying chapters -- wow, suddenly we’re in space now? Holy Hell! -- and it is, from start to finish, utterly captivating. It not only thoroughly entertained me for the duration but also taught me a thing or two.

Really.

For one, there’s this whole exploration of mental illness, with specific emphasis on how it affects teens. There is a strong message in here of acceptance and tolerance and understanding, and while, yes, in true YA form, it does somewhat glamorize those with a more unique manner of seeing the world -- Alison’s not disturbed, she’s Special! -- and while, yes, it does present us with an age-inappropriate romance (also in true YA form), there is much about this book that is wholly original, which could be what makes it so breathlessly compelling.

Alison is a lyrical and amiable, if occasionally intense, narrator, and you will like her a lot. The villains of the piece, not so much -- but on the other hand, it is often very difficult to tell who those villains are, their infamy darkening or lightening depending on how they are perceived by the girl to whose thoughts we are privy. Anderson has a light touch with both the teenspeak and the fevered worldview of her charming creation, and the story constantly surprises and delights even as it arouses fury and concern.

The one quibble I really have with this book is the title. Given the BBC show and the Milla Jovovich movie of the same name, I have to say, I was kind of expecting vampires. Glad as I am that I was wrong, it still feels like false advertising.

Nevertheless, Ultraviolet is simply a terrific read. Hang being the Next Big Thing in YA paranormal obsession; it should be the Next Big Thing in paranormal fiction, period.

   -- Rachel Hyland