St. Martin's Press
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance
Gorgeous. Fearless.
Dangerous. They're the kind of girls you envy; the kind of girls you
want to hate. Strangers in town for the summer, Penn, Lexi and Thea have
caught everyone's attention—but it’s Gemma who’s attracted theirs.
She’s the one they’ve chosen to be part of their group.
Gemma
seems to have it all—she’s carefree, pretty, and falling in love with
Alex, the boy next door. He’s always been just a friend, but this summer
they’ve taken their relationship to the next level, and now there’s no
going back. Then one night, Gemma’s ordinary life changes forever. She’s
taking a late night swim under the stars when she finds Penn, Lexi and
Thea partying on the cove. They invite her to join them, and the next
morning she wakes up on the beach feeling groggy and sick, knowing
something is different.
Suddenly Gemma is stronger, faster, and
more beautiful than ever. But her new powers come with a terrifying
price. And as she uncovers the truth, she’s is forced to choose between
staying with those she loves—or entering a new world brimming with dark
hungers and unimaginable secrets. (Source)
I apologize for the huge list of topics I want to hit for this review. They're not all negative, but they all effect my feelings and rating of this book. Let's dive in.
There's the length and split up of the book, while barely breaking 300 page long, yet there's a new chapter every 10 pages. At first I found it annoying, then I realized it's how the author choose to have the story move from scene to scene, from character to character. Without realizing it for about half the book,
I was hearing two sides of this story.
While Gemma is the main character, most of the spotlight on her, as the story grows her sister Harper begins to have her own place of importance as well as development.
(I felt silly that I can't really noticed the shift sooner.)
However, I feel that these characters are very sallow and immature. This is the story of 16 year old Gemma and 18 year old Harper. Their view points and arguments don't have much of a foundation.
Harper has that role of "I'm your stand-in parent", who is of course more control then her actual parent. Being hugely responsible for my own well being since I was a teenager, I really couldn't relate to Harper. She has a true complex about control, with a small town mind frame. Stating she wants to escape, going off to college, but I look at her going "Do you really? Because it doesn't seem like it." She completely content staying in a home and town where she knows everything and has total control over her life. (Or so she thinks)
While Gemma is struggling for/with her independence.. when it's all she's ever had? Her father doesn't cage her, quite frankly he lets her do more than Harper would approve it.
Personally I didn't feel much heart into who they were or why.
One of the biggest annoyances is the way they refer to, the
Quartet, as "those girls".
"those girls" "those girls", "oddly pretty girls", "pretty girls"
We get it, they're weird. They give you this odd feel, they have this unsettling aura about them.
Please, find another way to refer to them.
"Penn and her gang",
"Penn and her followers",
"Penn's girls" YOU KNOW THEIR NAMES. Use them please.
I understand, they are part of the story that has to be introduced. They have to be creepy,
alluring, mysterious and yet
always around especially when weird shanantics are about to go down.
(Personally if they bothered me so much I would have given their group a nickname. It's something me and my friends would do.)
A large plus is the short mythology lesson and most of the information being pretty accurate, given lots of versions of mythology in general.. But I won't say too much on that.
It's a large sort of spiderweb of possibilities to come in the series, that I'm unsure of. There's no point to start trying to figure out where it may go or what parts of old stories and mythology apply to these girls.
The largest negative factor... Is about how the image of the Quartet changes the more we get to know about them. After awhile they're seen as these vicious monsters. Giving no care to who they hurt or the damage they do. It makes little sense of them to sudden change that, in only one scene other than to have the story left open. Yes I am talking about a cliffhanger ending.
It does leave the story open on the ability of continuing the story from Harper's view-point, but speaking plot and character traits wise... it doesn't add up.
With all said and done, I also feel it should be taken into account that this book is
part of a series. Given this, standing alone, didn't cover much of a time frame, I think it books may need to be looked at as a whole. The possibility they flow as a collection is there.
Which also plays into my rating. It's not a writing or story style I recommend,
if you can't keep readers hooked for one book, you can't expected them to read the next one.
That is probably the heaviest weighing factor of my review.
It's a horrible blow to make, but I felt this story was
juvenile. In the characters, their development, the story, and it's telling. It's kind of disappointing for me to admit.
Recommend: Light reading, light mythology, paranormal
