Colorworld Readalong: Teleworld Chapters 1-12

Hey all, Dani here.

After finishing the first book in the Colorworld Readalong, it is now time to delve into the second book in the series. We’ve barely scratched the surface of everything that can be learned and done in the colorworld, and this second book definitely teaches us more. It also puts some relationships through a trial or a gauntlet. Are you ready to talk even more about one of my favorite book series? Because I sure am. Let’s get started.

Teleworld is 400 pages long (the original version anyway) with 51 chapters total. There is also an illustrated edition, the e-book, or the audiobook. I do definitely recommend listening to this book if you are someone who enjoys audiobooks. The voice actor cast is absolutely incredible. This first book just features Todd Haberkorn and Cherami Leigh, but they have also added Brittney Karbowski, David Wald, and Chiemeri Osemele.

The readalong for June 29-July 27 will cover Teleworld, the second book of the series. I’ll have the book details below the cover image.

And you can check out my post with the full readalong details here.

June 29-July 6: ———Read Chapters 1-12

July 6-13: ——-Read Chapters 13-24

July 13-20: —–Read Chapters 25-39

June 20-27: —–Read Chapters 40-Epilogue

My plan is to have the discussion posts for each week posted on Sundays…so July 5, July 12, July 19, and July 26. Join in on those posts any time you’d like. Just be forewarned that I cannot guarantee that the discussions will be spoiler free. If you want spoiler free information about this series, you can check out my book review.

After a month of living a semi-normal life with her condition, Wen would rather not think about scary things like the fact that her ability became more powerful all on its own. Or that Louise is still roaming free. Or that she’s about to be married to Gabriel and she has no idea how they’ll manage being unable to touch each other. But the questions won’t leave her alone and she’s desperate for answers.

Wen believes those answers begin with Subject Number Three, the only person known to have survived touching her lethal skin. When her Uncle Robert finally locates the woman, Wen is sure that an end to her problems is within her grasp.

She’s wrong. They’ve only just begun.

Now, hope for a cure to Wen’s condition is crumbling, Kaylen is missing, and a horrifying accident with her brother leaves Wen desperate and terrified. Just when she thinks she can’t take much more, Gabriel, the one person Wen thought she could count on, suddenly becomes the one person she fears the most.

Be Warned…since this is a discussion for book two, there are probably spoilers below and in the comments. But if you want to start at the beginning of the discussions for the first book, you can head over to this post, which then links to the rest of the Colorworld discussions.

Chapters 1-12

1. We begin Teleworld with a seemingly mundane situation of Wendy washing produce, while Gabriel and Ezra hang out somewhat near her. But we are quickly reminded of Wendy’s death touch ability, and then the chapter ends with talk of abilities and then secrets. Wendy even ends the chapter vaguely thinking about how she herself is keeping secrets. Do you have any sort of guess for what secrets she’s keeping (other than the truth of Kaylen’s ability)?
2. Okay, so Wendy and Gabriel’s deep conversation in Chapter 6 ends with Wendy revealing that she had gotten pregnant in high school? Did you see that secret revelation coming or were you as surprised as Gabriel? Going even further into the conversation that follows, what do you think of how both Wendy and Gabriel navigate the topic of responsibility and adoption and teen pregnancy and everything that goes with the decisions of youth?
3. We finally meet Maris and Dan, Gabriel’s parents, as well as meeting Gabe’s brother Mike. What are your first impressions of the three of them?
4. Let’s talk about the wedding: the food, the dress, the decorations, all of it.
5. Finally, I have to bring up the accident where Wendy starts to fall and Ezra grabs her, which means he has come in contact with her bare skin. What did you think when that happened?

Honestly when Wendy hinted in her thoughts about having secrets, and about how basically her past was someone she no longer was and didn’t want to think about or be anymore, I was curious, but I didn’t exactly pause in my reading to try and take guesses at what secrets she could be keeping. And obviously now that I’ve read Teleworld a few times I’m not exactly in a place to answer this question because I actually know about the secrets Wendy kept. We will obviously talk about each secret as it gets revealed later in this book.

Actually, speaking of secrets, it really doesn’t take that long for one of the big ones to come out, and that is about Wendy’s teen pregnancy. I think the conversation that follows between Wendy and Gabriel is a really interesting one. Wendy is expecting Gabriel to be angry and to lash out, and obviously because of being an empath she can feel his emotions as he processes the information he has just received. But the conversation is very calm and mature, and I think overall Gabriel’s response keeps this from being an emotionally charged shout-fest or anything. I actually really liked that Gabe took the time to tell Wendy not to blame herself for making the decision to give her daughter up for adoption, and certainly not for her daughter’s death shortly after. It’s nice that he respects the decision that she made and doesn’t make her feel shame or guilt about it, especially since it’s clear that she already feels that way herself, so adding more on top of it wouldn’t have been helpful. I know that not all couple conversations and disagreements and all that will happen this way, but I like when books also show a developed and mature response instead of just a tense drama-filled situation.

I love Maris. That is all. She is just great, even from the beginning. You can tell that she knows how Gabriel is, and she also has such a warm and welcoming and loving persona about her. And of course she is a spitfire next to her husband Dan, who is definitely the cool and calm side to Maris’ fire and spunk. And then we meet Mike, and just from the very brief time we’re with him, I don’t like him——-though I will say that this is only my opinion on him for Teleworld, because if you listen to me talk now, Mike is my book boyfriend——–and I have no idea what his problem is. I hope we find out why he’s such a jerk later.

Oh my goodness, the wedding. I loved the reappearance of spinach and artichoke. Honestly I love the books where food and the descriptions of food are such a prevalent part of the story. Though, of course, it does make me hungry. And I love all the care and thought and symbolism that Gabriel put into designing the whole wedding. It is beautiful and meaningful and just makes for a wonderful romantic scene.

Of course this leads into the dark patch of the wedding sequence, and that is the panic and fear and anger and guilt that Wendy feels after Ezra saves her from falling and touches her. Thankfully based on what has happened, it seems like he might be okay. We know of one person who has for sure survived Wendy’s touch, and from the heist into Louise’s files from Colorworld we know that sometimes the reaction to touching Wendy’s skin can take some time. But, based on the descriptions of when Ezra touches Wendy, it also doesn’t seem the same as when she touched Dina and Derek, so at this point, who knows exactly what is going on. Maybe Ezra’s immune to. At this point we don’t quite know, but it is easy to understand why Wendy is so upset about what has happened. And then it causes her to spiral and freak out, and then she checks her blood sugar and it’s low, and that causes her to panic more, and then Maris tries to help and Wendy starts to freak out even more for not even thinking about the fact that she’s not wearing her gloves and she could have killed Maris just by asking her to help out. It is an incredibly emotional time for Wendy, and it seems very possible to me that this might cause problems through the rest of the book. Only time will tell.

Oh, and if you have any questions from these chapters, feel free to ask them in the comments. I don’t have to be the only one coming up with these discussion questions/comments. I’ll be back soon with more bookish content.