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.