Ana V.

NOTE : see this review and more on http://cocainepages.wordpress.com


The pace is good. It’s action-packed and there is constantly something happening, it’s never “oh I’m a bit bored, I think I’ll go eat something”, it’s more like “I WON’T BATHE WITHOUT THE BOOK, MOM!”. Yes.

The characters lack.. I can’t find the word in English. I think it’s depth, because they lack that certain thing that makes you want to get really close to them. I’m not marking this as a bad thing, because its a YA novel and usually these kind of books don’t focus on the people, they focus on the plot. The main character was, however, pretty good, and she wasn’t one of those teenage-I-just-got-the-powers-and-i-obivously-know-how-to-handle-them. The two brothers impressed me a bit, but more through their connection than their appearance. Of course she had to be with one of them, and of course at one point she had to choose, and of course (dooh), one of them was left to have feelings for her but accept that she loves his brother. I can’t say which one it is, because I’d spoil it. HAHA

The plot was not exceptional. I’m gonna make a comparison with the “Women of the Otherworld” series of this author, from which I read the first two volumes. That was much better than this, it was much better written and above all far more powerful than these ones. Again, I’m going to say that it’s a YA novel so I shouldn’t have expected more than what was delivered to me.

The main story (I said it before but now I can add stuff to it), is that Chloe Saunders gets her first period at fifteen and starts seeing dead people. She is installed in a sanatorium with other kids that are problematic. Only for her to discover that, whoops, she’s a necromancer and, whoops, she’s the most powerful that exists, because she has been genetically modified. And she’s not the only one. The kids at the sanatorium are just as “sick” as she is – they all are supra-natural. There’s the two brothers, Simon and Dereck, a girl Liz and another girl Tori. Simon is a wizard, Tori a witch. Dereck is a werewolf and Liz is a telekinetic semi-demon. Fascinating how they all gathered together, right? They go through many things, people betray them, they have to escape, some of them get a bit tortured, sometimes they are chased by armed men, but hey, what would a YA novel be without all these things, right?

All in all, it comes to one of those cheesy endings where things are fine. By that I mean that there are still bad guys out there, but they’ll deal with ‘em later, maybe after they grow up a little, learn to use their powers, get out of fuckin’ puberty.. things like that. And Chloe gets to be with her guy. Gah. Obvious. Gooey. Blah.

So, 3 stars for the first book, 4 each for the second and the third, and I can say it was a fast, delicious read between other works of much greater importance.