Let me start off by saying, if you did not know this was written by two women, you would never know. This was a pretty darn good book altogether, but honestly, the only thing that kept me reading through the 200 page mark was the fact that I can't leave a mystery unsolved and I had to write this book review, that and sự lãng mạn (that's one of my reasons for sticking with the book in a language I'm not telling you). But in the end, I'm glad I stuck with it for whatever reason in whatever language.
The book is about Ethan and Lena (as Leena, I didn't figure that out until around a hundred pages in, so here it is from the start). Ethan is a normal human being, a Mortal, and Lena is a Caster, like a witch but less evil-sounding. Caster's, at their sixteenth birthday, go Dark or Light, A.K.A. they choose when they're sixteen and full of teenage hormones whether they want to spend the rest of their life on Team Good or Team Bad. But Lena's family is different, the women in Lena's family are cursed to have their fate chosen for them, and Lena's scared she's going to get picked for Team Bad. Ethan has been having dreams of Lena, and Lena's been having the same dreams. When Lena moves to Gatlin (the town in which the story takes place), Ethan doesn't recognize her immediately like he should because he can never remember the girl's face. But what he does remember is her scent. So when he almost runs Lena over, and gives her a ride home, he recognizes her through her smell, lemons and rosemary. The rest of the story basically goes on with these aspects mixed together-
1. Ethan finds out Lena is a Caster
2. Ethan copes with Lena being a Caster
3. Lena's weird relatives
4. The Cheerleaders from Hell
5. Information that I kept thinking was meant to fill up time, but really does turn out to be helpful in the end.
Now on to the review.
I found it really refreshing to have a YA novel almost completely narrated by a dude (I say this because there are a couple pages near the end that are narrated by Lena). The book was good, long though. I kept whining to my friend and my mom that there were a hundred pages for less than 24 hours. The book kept me thinking, but I think this was only because I have a hard time putting my thoughts into words. It was written beautifully, but I'm not sure it had the best plot to back it up. This is the opposite of the problem with the last book I reviewed, Shiver, that had a good plot with not so good writing, and you need both to make for an excellent novel. Let me just say that I think the cover is awesome, but really hard to read if you stare at it too long. Besides that, I have nothing more to say. I bid you good bye!
Taryn.
P.S. I will now embark upon the journey that is Harry Potter *crossingmyself*, may God help me look at this critically. Help.
2 comments:
Hey Taryn! I'm a friend of your Uncle Kevin, my name is Tim. I was visiting your Uncle last week (I live in Chicago) and he told me all about your blog. I stopped by and it's great! Keep up the good work, you're an excellent writer.
I have a degree in English and I'm an on-again-off-again writer/blogger. My blog is currently neglected but can be found at http://blog.vasilcastle.com, and I do a yearly best-of music list at http://www.vasilcastle.com/timmys/ (I'm still working on 2009).
I want to mention two sites to you- first, Library Thing- http://www.librarything.com/. It's a great site to catalog your books, get recommendations and connect with other readers. A really cool feature is the early reviewers feature. They allow for people to sign up and request advance copies of books- they send them to you for free, you review them and they are yours to keep. I got a few books this way, and through this site, found other places to request review copies. I wound up with more than i could keep up with! One note- you may want to use a U.S. relative's address, as publishers may not send to Qatar. My page on Library Thing is http://www.librarything.com/home/TimV57. Again, my page is a little out of date.
Reading your blog, I see you're interested in fashion- have you ever seen http://www.thestylerookie.com/? It's by a girl named Tavi who's now 14, she started when she was 12 and now she goes to fashion week, has deals with Target, etc. I learned about her from an article in the Chicago Tribune- she's from the burbs here. I know know nothing about fashion, but she also seems like a good writer, you may enjoy her blog.
Hope you find those sites useful and keep writing! I'm going to send links to your Harry Potter reviews to my sister in law and her friends- they're big Harry Potter fans!
Take care,
Tim
Thanks Mr. Vasil. I'm almost finished with Harry Potter, I'm a couple hundred pages away from finishing Deathly Hallows, so the review should be posted either tonight or tomorrow. I'll have to check out those blogs.
Taryn
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