ARC Review: Lailah by Nikki Kelly

Series: The Styclar Saga #1
Genres: Paranormal, Angels/Vampires, Young Adult
Release Date: October 7th, 2014
Publisher:  Feiwel & Friends
Source:  eARC from Netgalley
Check out on GOODREADS

The girl knows she’s different. She doesn’t age. She has no family. She has visions of a past life, but no clear clues as to what she is, or where she comes from. But there is a face in her dreams – a light that breaks through the darkness. She knows his name is Gabriel.

On her way home from work, the girl encounters an injured stranger whose name is Jonah. Soon, she will understand that Jonah belongs to a generation of Vampires that serve even darker forces. Jonah and the few like him, are fighting with help from an unlikely ally – a rogue Angel, named Gabriel.

In the crossfire between good and evil, love and hate, and life and death, the girl learns her name: Lailah. But when the lines between black and white begin to blur, where in the spectrum will she find her place? And with whom?

Gabriel and Jonah both want to protect her. But Lailah will have to fight her own battle to find out who she truly is.

review

This book was incredibly infuriating yet at the same time, it let me down. It could have been incredible yet it wasn’t . All that potential down the drain.

Doesn’t the idea of a girl who has no idea who she is but knows she cannot die intrigue you? Doesn’t it make you want to know more? Let me tell you, you do NOT want to know more about this girl and the drama that is her life.

For starters, I just want to rant about the amount of materialism in this book. I don’t know if materialism is the word I want to use but let’s just roll with it. Brooke is this vampire who doesn’t really like Cessie (so she likes to call herself) because she is after her man yet, she takes her shopping to buy her all these things she doesn’t fucking need. THEY LITERALLY BUY CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTINS because she’ll need them some day. WHEN? WHEN YOU’RE ON THE FUCKING RUN? She also buys all these pricey things including a Chanel winter coat. You might be wondering why this bothers me though? Why am I so anti this girl spending a lot of money? This is a girl that is used to living on minimal things, yet as soon as she gets her hands on money, she goes cray. Of course, it’s not that she wants these things as we are reminded, but then Brooke tags her along and it would be weird to refuse to waste money on such trivial things. I cannot even.

That’s just a little bit of an insight into her character. She isn’t all that strong. She is incredibly jealous and cannot make her fucking mind up about which boy she wants (more on that later though). She’s also very dependent on people and cannot seem to connect the dots. There are things that are so glaringly obvious but she has her head stuck in the sand so it’s impossible for her to acknowledge these things about her that she should have acknowledged ages ago.

Moving on to the love triangle or I should say love square. I want to start this off by saying that if you’re looking forward to reading this book and love triangles discourage you, you might just be able to justify this one and not let it affect your enjoyment of the book. In fact there is a way the love triangle can be viewed to make it so you don’t hate it as much as I did. I personally don’t like them in any form which is why I wasn’t convinced by the explanation but that depends on personal tastes. The most annoying thing about this love triangle is that on top of the fact that there are two guys interested in the girl, there are other girls interested in the guys too and it just makes this whole thing a dramatic mess. I just don’t understand why.

Plus on top of that, none of the love interests are particularly appealing. One is creepy stalker who stares at her while she changes (and she blushes instead of being creeped out) and is generally very pushy and rude. If I met someone like that in real life, I wouldn’t hesitate to place a restraining order on him. Gabriel on the other hand wasn’t nearly as unbearable… in the beginning. What changed things was his inability to just tell her to truth. He just let her jealousy fester until he had no choice but to tell her things. It’s really annoying when he refuses to tell her the truth because he doesn’t believe she is ready. Who is he to tell her if she is ready or not? Her father? Seriously.

The plot was actually interesting, or would have been if it weren’t overshadowed by the drama in Cessie’s life.  I mean, they were on the run, but they spend a ridiculous amount shopping so that kind of took from the plot.

There was definitely some interesting world building and I would go so far to say that it makes the book stand out from all those typical angels/demons books but alas this cannot make up for the other faults that had me shaking my head and yelling at my kindle.

The weird thing is, in spite of everything, I want to read the sequel. I have this crazy hope inside of me that things will get better. Considering the fun synopsis, I want things to get better; I want to love the book.

If you’re looking forward to reading the book, don’t get discouraged, there is a good chance you might still like it, but if what I am saying doesn’t make things sound fun, you might want to  give this book a pass.