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Friday, June 22, 2012

Book Review: Nightshade

Nightshade (Nightshade #1)
by Andrea Cremer

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Publication: July 2011
Format: Paperback, 480 pages
'I wanted him to kiss me-wished he could smell the desire that I knew was pouring off me. 
You can't, Calla. This boy isn't the one for you.' 

Calla Tor has always known her destiny: graduation, marriage and then a life leading her pack. But when she defies her masters' laws to save a human boy, she must choose. Is one boy worth losing everything?

I wanted to read this book when I learned that the heroine, Calla is an alpha werewolf—the one who is leading her pack called Nightshades. I found it interesting to see the heroine with power instead of having her playing as a damsel in distress.

Nightshade begins with how Calla breaks the rules by saving a human boy (Shay) which later will play an important role in the story. Then the story gets a bit slow and confusing when Andrea Cremer starts to explain a bit more about Calla’s and the werewolf life, the Guardians, the Keeper, and the Searcher. It gets a bit boring during the explanation and I had to put down the book away for a few times. The story finally pick up its pace when Shay showed Calla a book on ‘the war of all against all’ which was forbidden by the guardian to read and their investigation begins.

I like Calla. She’s a strong woman, she fights back, she protects her pack and she’s good at it. Although it kinds of annoy me when she can’t seem to make her decision whether she likes Shay or Ren. There were hints of how she is attracted to both male. Calla didn’t really like the idea that she’s going to marry Ren because that was her destiny. That she didn’t have a choice for she is a warrior. She thinks of it as her fate. Then she met Shay, the human boy. For some reason, she was drawn to him as he is to her. But the thing is I think Calla had more chemistry with Ren than she had with Shay.

Ren didn’t really sound like a good guy at first. There is his behavior with the other girls which Calla didn’t approve. But after a few chapters, I could see that Ren is a good guy and that he loves Calla. And Calla seems to have some kind of attraction to Ren as well. Which makes me wonder, if Calla was attracted to Shay because she was trying to rebel. It was as if she wanted to say that she can make her own choice. (So… you could probably see that I’m rooting for Ren).

I love Nightshade. Andrea Cremer succeeds in building the story, characters and twist. I like how the love story between Calla, Ren and Shay didn’t overshadow the story itself, that the suspense and romance between characters complimented each other. I enjoyed the book and the suspense as it gets to the end. But then Andrea Cremer had to end the book with a cliffhanger. *sighs* WHY!! I’m really looking forward to read the next book and find out what happen to Calla next.

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