Review: The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong

The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong
Published: April 12th 2011; HarperCollins
359 pages

From Goodreads:

Sixteen-year-old Maya is just an ordinary teen in an ordinary town. Sure, she doesn't know much about her background - the only thing she really has to cling to is an odd paw-print birthmark on her hip - but she never really put much thought into who her parents were or how she ended up with her adopted parents in this tiny medical-research community on Vancouver Island.

Until now.

Strange things have been happening in this claustrophobic town - from the mountain lions that have been approaching Maya to her best friend's hidden talent for "feeling" out people and situations, to the sexy new bad boy who makes Maya feel . . . . different. Combine that with a few unexplained deaths and a mystery involving Maya's biological parents and it's easy to suspect that this town might have more than its share of skeletons in its closet.

My Rating:

4 stars 

 

Thoughts:
 

The YA genre has become overrun with books about werewolves (and other were-beings). Some people scoff at this and say they’ve lost faith in reading any of these books since they think they’re all just the same cut-and-paste story. I, on the other hand, love this abundance of books. Sure, some of them will be bad, but there will also be some amazing ones mixed in there too. As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

            The Gathering was one of these amazing finds. I read Armstrong’s Darkest Powers series a few years ago; I loved her writing style, and her series was one of the first ones I read that had a heroine who was a necromancer. In short, I had high expectations for The Gathering, and I wasn’t disappointed.

            The story starts off with the death of Maya’s best friend, Serena, and then fast-forwards to a year later. Maya has mostly moved on, and spends most of her time with Serena’s boyfriend, Daniel. Her life is mostly problem free, but the new guy, Rafe, won’t leave her alone.

            By far, my favorite part of this book was Maya herself, because there wasn’t a single point in this book where I had to question whether or not she had a brain. She was smart, and she didn’t swoon every time Rafe looked at her. All of the characters in this book were well thought out, and they didn’t fit perfectly into any stereotype.

            After the first few chapters of the book I expected there to be some budding romance between Maya and Daniel, since they were best friends and spent most of their time together. Surprisingly, there didn’t seem to be too much romance between them, but with this being a series I won’t be shocked if something does happen eventually (what can I say, I’m a fan of love triangles).

            The romance between Maya and Rafe was also a high point of the book, because it wasn’t an immediate “oh wow, I’m in love with you even though we just met” situation. Even by the end of the book there wasn’t any declaration that they were soul mates and they would be together forever. I can’t wait to see how their relationship develops in the next book.

Overall, I really liked this book. There were a few points where it dragged a little, but everything else about it was amazing. This book had a lot of setup for the next book (The Calling, which is out now!) so there were a lot of unanswered questions and I can’t wait to read the next book in the series. If you’re looking for a great book, definitely read The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong.

Review: The Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers by Lynn Weingarten

From Goodreads:
If there’s an upside to having your heart broken, it’s this: A broken heart makes you brave.

The first day of sophomore year doesn’t go the way Lucy planned. After a summer apart from her boyfriend, she’s ready to greet him with a special surprise and instead gets a shocking one in return: He’s breaking up with her. Beyond devastated, Lucy has no idea how she’s going to make it through homeroom, let alone the rest of her life.

Enter three stunning girls with the unnatural ability to attract boys and an offer Lucy can’t refuse: They can heal her heart in an instant. And then she’ll be one of them—a member of a sisterhood that is impervious to heartbreak and has access to magic distilled from the tears of brokenhearted boys. But to gain their power, Lucy must get a guy to fall in love with her the old-fashioned way, and then break his heart in the next seven days.

While the sisterhood may need another Heartbreaker, Lucy’s only desire is to get her ex back. But how far is she willing to go, and who is she willing to cross to get what she wants?

My Rating: 3 stars

Thoughts:

The Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers has me torn for multiple reasons. First of all, the sisterhood was original, and I really liked Olivia, Gil and Liza (though the descriptions of Liza as “big” didn’t really make sense to me). When I started reading this book I was expecting more of a cutesy contemporary YA romance where the heroine goes through a few trials before winning back the boy she loves. It was that kind of story in some ways, but it had a lot more magic than I thought it would (in a good way) so I was happily surprised.

On the other hand, the main character and her attempts at romance fell completely flat for me. Yes, it’s supposed to be tragic that Lucy’s boyfriend broke up with her, but after reading the first hundred pages or so, it made no sense why she was so obsessed with him in the first place. There weren’t any descriptions of him that showed his redeeming qualities, other than that he liked to take pictures, but Lucy still kept going after him. My main problem with this was that Lucy spent 95% of the book fantasizing about getting Alex back, so there wasn’t room for any actual romance in the book; there was potential for things to happen, but nothing ever did.

Luckily, this book improved after Lucy finally realized her ex was a dud (sadly, that wasn’t until there were only like 20 pages left in the book). I would give this book a higher rating if it weren’t for all of Lucy’s pointless attempts to win Alex back. But, her final realization was worth the wait, and while I can’t say I loved this book, it was still worth reading.