Farsighted

This debut novel and series launch centers on Alex, a blind high school sophomore who longs for a friend. He finds one in Simmi, a new girl from India, to whom he feels a strong attraction. Alex is puzzled and terrified when he begins to have trancelike visions in which Simmi is killed by a boy named Dax%E2%80%94multiple times and gruesomely. When Miss Teak, who works as a psychic, tells Alex that he possesses the ability to see into the future, he becomes determined to save Simmi from a violent fate. Chand awards psychic gifts quite liberally: Simmi is "clairsentient," a "psychic feeler" who can manipulate others' emotions; Miss Teak's daughter, Shapri, a friend of Alex, channels the dead; and Alex's father can read minds. Still, they are credible characters, with Alex and Simmi emerging as especially sympathetic. A showdown between Alex and Dax (who sets loose all the animals at the Bronx Zoo) brings the novel to a surreal and sufficiently suspenseful close. Ages 12%E2%80%93up.