Saturday, July 2, 2011

Book Review: Born at Midnight by CC Hunter

Born at Midnight by CC Hunter
Shadow Falls Book #1
Published: March 29th, 2011
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
398 pages (paperback)
Genre: Young adult paranormal/urban fantasy
Acquired this book: at the library
Warning: may include spoilers

Synopsis, taken from dust jacket of the book: One night Kylie Galen finds herself at the wrong party, with the wrong people, and it changes her life forever.  Her mother ships her off to Shadow Falls - a camp for troubled teens - and within hours of arriving, it becomes painfully clear that her fellow campers aren't just "troubled".  Here at Shadow Falls, vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, witches, and fairies train side by side, learning to harness their powers, control their magic, and live in the normal world.
Kylie's never felt normal, but surely she doesn't belong here with a bunch of paranormal freaks, either.  Or does she?  They insist Kylie is one of them and that she was brought here for a reason.  As if life wasn't complicated enough, enter Derek and Lucas.  Derek's a half Fae who's determined to be her boyfriend, and Lucas couldn't be more different, but they both have a powerful hold on her heart.
Even though Kylie feels deeply uncertain about everything, one thing is becoming painfully clear: Shadow Falls is exactly where she belongs....


What I thought of Born at Midnight:
I felt like I waited most of the book for something to happen, and very little did.  For a 400-page book, I think if it had been half as long, and the author had just included the important, interesting stuff, and not 3/4 filler, it could have been a really good book, because the concept had potential.  It just felt like a lot of unnecessary filler.  Explanation to follow...

Through the entire book, the same things are repeated over and over.  All of Kylie's mental dialogue and inner turmoil is made up of the same few subjects that she dwells on endlessly - she couldn't possibly be a supernatural, there has to be another explanation; Derek reminded her of Trey, her ex-boyfriend - not only does she mention this a dozen times or more, she goes into great detail of how Derek reminds her of Trey; she wishes that she could just be normal and have a normal life, that her parents weren't divorcing, that they cared more about her, etc, etc. 

Kylie is all over the place.  She's whiney, indecisive and spends most of the time feeling sorry for herself.  She goes back and forth the entire book unsure of how she feels about all three of the love interests in her life.  Trey dumped her and only wants to have sex, but despite that she still cares about him.  She likes Derek, but is conflicted because he reminds her so much of Trey, but when she realizes he's nothing like Trey, she's even more torn, and even though she just wants to be friends, she's jealous when he seemingly likes another girl.  She hates Lucas then she wants him, then she doesn't know what to think.  Whenever she's thinking of one boy, she's usually thinking about another, too, comparing them and how she feels about them.

All of that being said, I always hate writing bad reviews because it just doesn't feel right.  As a writer, I know how much work goes into a novel, and it just feels like bad karma to only talk about what I didn't like, especially if there are a few good points.  There were a few interesting twists and turns in the plot.  Some of the characters did have redeeming qualities - I liked Holiday (the camp leader), Miranda (one of Kylie's roommates) and Derek.  I liked all the different kinds of supernatural creatures and their unexpected powers. There were two separate mysteries in the storyline and both were interesting and had surprising outcomes (one more than the other). 


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1 comment:

  1. I think I read one of the bonus stories that goes with the book and I enjoyed it, but it was only a few pages so I didn't get a good feel, but I'm interested in the book. I like how you add the things you liked as well as the bad.

    ReplyDelete

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