- I’ve always leaned toward the werewolf side of werewolves vs. vampires
- Lots and lots of buzz about this book, wanted to check it out.
- Unearthly by Cynthia Hand
- Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn
Summary from GoodReads:
Calla Tor has always known her destiny: After graduating from the Mountain School, she’ll be the mate of sexy alpha wolf Ren Laroche and fight with him, side by side, ruling their pack and guarding sacred sites for the Keepers. But when she violates her masters’ laws by saving a beautiful human boy out for a hike, Calla begins to question her fate, her existence, and the very essence of the world she has known. By following her heart, she might lose everything— including her own life. Is forbidden love worth the ultimate sacrifice?
My Review:
The good:
- Calla is a strong-willed, intelligent female.
- Lots of action, lots of interesting lore.
- Fantastic setting – Vail, Colorado is exactly where I could imagine a wolf pack taking up residence.
The bad:
- I’m tired of love triangles. They keep popping up and it hurts my brain.
- I hate cliffhangers – thankfully this is something that will be solved in July of 2011.
Now that I’ve finished listing out some of my favorites and not-so-favorites, I’ll talk about my impressions of Nightshade by Andrea Cremer. As mentioned above, I’m so over love triangles and this one really didn’t work for me – mostly because I liked Ren a lot more than I liked Shay. I don’t like the amount of conflict breaking rules does to a story because I end up spending the whole time waiting for the rule-breakers to get caught instead of focusing on the actual plot that’s being developed. Don’t get me wrong, I like a rule broken here or there, but these were some pretty amazing breaks happening and it just seemed a bit unrealistic that the all-powerful Keepers were kept in the dark for so long.
I loved Calla and Bryn and even Sabine. I thought the presence of strong females really gave the book a nice edge and it was enjoyable not to have a girl swooning over a guy every second page of a book. I loved that there was an actual plot outside of the romance, something that’s not as common as you would think these days. And, in spite of hating love triangles, I do like that there is still a chance that Calla might choose either or instead of a full-on leaning toward one (although, I will get highly annoyed if she pulls a “Bella” in book two and just leads one on).
I was a little worried when I started Nightshade that I was setting myself up for more disappointment in the werewolf YA literature area.. but I was pleasantly surprised and easily made my way through the book in a single days worth of reading. It was fun, engrossing and I’ll be on the lookout for book two.
Check out these review(s):
It is almost like you are reading my mind because we had/have so many of the same thoughts. Oh, except for you liking Ren over Shay…I am in team Shay:)
I know that the next one will be here next year, but the cliffhanger thing really bothered me. It was like there was no resolution to ANYTHING and you can bet that by the time the next one comes out, I will have read to much that I won’t remember where we left off.
A Belated Merry Christmas to you!