Series: The Lynburn Legacy, Book 1
Author: Sarah Rees Brennan
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy
Rating: Teen (some sensuality, mild violence and gore)
Summary: Kami Glass loves someone she’s never met . . . a boy she’s talked to in her head ever since she was born. She wasn’t silent about her imaginary friend during her childhood, and is thus a bit of an outsider in her sleepy English town of Sorry-in-the-Vale. Still, Kami hasn’t suffered too much from not fitting in. She has a best friend, runs the school newspaper, and is only occasionally caught talking to herself. Her life is in order, just the way she likes it, despite the voice in her head.
But all that changes when the Lynburns return.
The Lynburn family has owned the spectacular and sinister manor that overlooks Sorry-in-the-Vale for centuries. The mysterious twin sisters who abandoned their ancestral home a generation ago are back, along with their teenage sons, Jared and Ash, one of whom is eerily familiar to Kami. Kami is not one to shy away from the unknown—in fact, she’s determined to find answers for all the questions Sorry-in-the-Vale is suddenly posing. Who is responsible for the bloody deeds in the depths of the woods? What is her own mother hiding? And now that her imaginary friend has become a real boy, does she still love him? Does she hate him? Can she trust him?
Writing: It started really well, lost some momentum halfway, but mostly picked back up for the rest. While Sarah's style could be a little hard to follow at times, she was pretty good at keeping me reading without a break.
World: While it was supposed to feel very narrow, being set in a tiny English town, it felt a little more narrow than expected for me. The power angle was pretty basic, but it had its points of originality.
Story: For a YA book it felt more like an MG book, which made any romance feel childish and cheesy. I've read Sarah before and she can do excellent older teen, so I have no idea what went wrong here. The emotions were constantly all over the place, making the story hard to follow past the 1/4th point. And around the middle it started feeling choppy, like we were missing bits here and there - stepping in and out of scenes and missing important stuff in between. After a while I just gave up trying to understand anything at all (not a good thing in my opinion). To top it all off, it was 3rd Person Present Tense, which is fine except for the rare moment (in the middle of a chapter) when she would suddenly switch from Kami to Jared's POV without any warning. This caused moments of confusion that were not pleasant and required me to read several paragraphs twice.
Characters: Kami was a good enough main character, although every time she investigated anything she sounded (and acted) like a grade-school Nancy Drew. Jared was probably my favorite, but only because he was so obsessively attached to Kami (I have a thing for that in stories ;). I despised Ash from the beginning so no love lost there. Actually, Angela was probably my favorite - her and her brother, Rusty. And Holly was pretty awesome. Ergo the sidekicks rocked, the heroes not so much.
Conclusion: I finished it. That says something with me right now. I didn't particularly care when it ended, but I'll give the next book a try, just to see where Sarah takes this.
Recommend?: I guess.
out of 4 Paws Up
