DNF: The Children of the Mist, by Jenny Brigalow

Release Date: September 1st, 2013
Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Walker Books for Young Readers
Source: Publisher through NetGalley
Overall: 2 Monkeys
Interest: Vampires, Werewolves, Aussie Lit
Categories: Paranormal, Romance, Series
Goodreads / Amazon / Jenny Brigalow's Website 
Read in September-October 2013 

Summary:

An original paranormal YA about an unconventional girl, an unconventional boy, their extraordinary transformations, and the secrets of the Scottish Highlands.

When skater girl Morven Smith turns sixteen, she develops boobs, acute appendicitis...and a pair of pointy teeth. While she is stunned by her metamorphosis into vampire, her best mate, the enigmatic Zest, is not. For the young werewolf, Morven’s transformation is an answer to his lonely prayers. 

But they are unable to celebrate their mutual paranormalcy for long — there are too many dangers, too much suspicion, and too many questions. It’s only in Scotland that Morven can learn the truth about her past. But she discovers more than she bargained for when she meets her birth family — an ancient feud between vampires and werewolves. They may both be Children of the Mist, but only one species can survive.

My Opinion:

I first decided to read this book because I really like aussie books, I like their cool idioms and reading about places that I'd love to visit someday, in this case, Australia and Scotland. 

So I met Morven, a skater girl, 16-year-old and with a penchant for adrenaline. The first couple of chapters introduced her and her friend Zest. I read about them skating, trespassing private property and freeing a lively Dog, but I still couldn't feel anything for them. 

I couldn't tell you why, but I couldn't bring myself to care for these characters. Sometimes I'd get excited about a situation, like when Morven starts to transform, to Become, and nurses and doctors try to pin her down and stop her from escaping. 

But then the book would go back to its previous slow pace and lost its grasp on me. I read half of the book and still, I couldn't get into it. I really tried to finish it, but it's been a long while and I need to read the other books on my Review List. 

Maybe the book will make up for these things I'm listing here in its second half, but I'm not tempted to read it any time soon. Sorry, Jenny! I really hate it when I can't even finish a book. 

If any of you have read the whole thing, let me know how it ends!

xo, Ella

Linger (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #2), by Maggie Stiefvater

Release Date: July 13th, 2010
Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Source: Bought
Overall: 3 Monkeys
Interest: Series, Werewolves
Categories: Werewolves, Paranormal, Romance
Goodreads - Amazon - Maggie Stiefvater's Website
Read in August 2013

Summary:

the longing.
Once Grace and Sam have found each other, they know they must fight to stay together. For Sam, this means a reckoning with his werewolf past. For Grace, it means facing a future that is less and less certain.

the loss.
Into their world comes a new wolf named Cole, whose past is full of hurt and danger. He is wrestling with his own demons, embracing the life of a wolf while denying the ties of being human.

the linger.
For Grace, Sam, and Cole, life is a constant struggle between two forces -- wolf and human -- with love bearing its two sides as well. It is harrowing and euphoric, freeing and entrapping, enticing and alarming. As their world falls apart, love is what lingers. But will it be enough?

My Opinion:

I read Shiver a few years ago, I don't know what took me so long to continue reading this series. 

While I loved Shiver, I only liked Linger. I was expecting something different, something with a little more action thrown into the story. 

Linger is purely a character driven book. It's all about what's happening to Grace, with a bit of a side story starring Isabelle and a new wolf, Cole. To be honest, I enjoyed Cole's and Isabelle's interactions more than Grace's and Sam's. They were more spicy, more dramatic. Grace and Sam's story fell a little flat to me in this book. 

Throughout it, Grace becomes seriously ill, and it's not until the last few chapters that we're told what's happening. And it's in those same chapters that a solution to her problem comes along. I just wish Maggie would've developed her illness differently, and also how it affected everyone around her. 

I also think that Isabelle's dad, Tom, could be turned into a nice villain, which is what this story is lacking. (Not a villain in a purely evil sense, just an antagonist strong enough to carry some drama into the mix.)

Linger is a very sweet book, full of romantic moments, but it just didn't cut it for me, action wise. I have Forever waiting on my shelf; I'll see if I like it soon. 

Nightshade (Witches' War, #1), by Andrea Cremer

Nightshade (Witches' War, #1), by Andrea Cremer on Goodreads

Release Date: October 19th, 2010
Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Philomel

Overall: 4 Monkeys
Interest: Series
Categories: Paranormal, Werewolves, Magic, Romance

Challenge: 100 Books in a Year
Read in May 2011

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 Opinion:

When this book came out last year, everyone was talking about it. Everyone. But since it's about werewolves, I wasn't very intrigued, despite the 5-star-reviews. Now that I've read it, I can honestly say that I really liked it. Not loved, but liked. 

Cremer does a very good job with her characters, but the beginning of the book was a little confusing to me. I don't know if it was because I listened to the audiobook and maybe missed something, but at first I didn't know if the humans knew about the nature of the pack, and were afraid because of that, or if they were ignorant of it, and were scared of them because of how the pack acted. It took me a long while to get that they didn't, in fact, know their classmates were wolves. (Maybe this happened only to me, or maybe to someone else too, I don't know.)

And there were other things that felt a bit forced, clichéd too. Like the incident in Haldis Cavern that led to... that thing you know if you read the book. It was way too obvious to me. I would have liked -maybe, loved- this book more if that hadn't happened.

What I did love -and the reason I'm giving this 4 stars- was the characterisation of the different characters. There were like ten wolves in Calla's pack, and all of them had a different and unique personality, which was brilliantly written. So, congrats Andrea for that!

Bryn and Ansel were terribly sweet! And the loyalty of the pack towards their alphas was great too. They may had had differences with them, but the pack certainly had no doubts when it came to protecting them.

I loved how Cremer wove the wolves' history with magic! And I cannot wait to learn more about Shay's place in all of this!

Shay was great. Romantic, strong, a bit shy... he was a brilliant character. Calla... she'll have to do more to get my attention. She felt like every other YA heroine to me. She was great in her own way, yeah, but I still wanted to see a bit more of her dark side. 

Overall, a really nice book! I'll have to read Wolfsbane soon!