Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell

Friday, 22 April 2011

GuestReview: Turned - Morgan Rice

Series: The Vampire Journals, 1
Genre: YA paranormal romance
Pages: 150
Published: Jan 2011
Review by Lis

Eighteen year old Caitlin Paine finds herself uprooted from her nice suburb and forced to attend a dangerous New York City high school when her Mom moves again. The one ray of light in her new surroundings is Jonah, a new classmate who takes an instant liking to her. But before their romance can blossom, Caitlin suddenly finds herself changing. She is overcome by a superhuman strength, a sensitivity to light, a desire to feed--by feelings she does not understand. She seeks answers to what’s happening to her, and her cravings lead her to the wrong place at the wrong time. Her eyes are opened to a hidden world. She finds herself right in the middle of a vampire war. It is at this moment that Caitlin meets Caleb, a mysterious and powerful vampire who rescues her from the dark forces.. Together, they will need to answer one crucial question: who was her real father? But Caitlin finds herself caught between two men as something else arises between them: a forbidden love.

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I’ll be honest, when B. sent me this book and I saw the title, my thoughts were: “Gawd, not another Vampire Diaries, Twilight rip-off!” ‘Cause there seems to be no end of those. It’s like the DaVinci Code all over again! While Turned is in no way original or refreshing – at least to me (let’s face it, there’s not much I haven’t seen and that includes lizard vampires!) – it was a nice read and I was glad B. sent it over. Let me tell you why.

Caitlin’s mum has the moving bug, so being the new gal at school is nothing new for her. She’s seen it all. Only this time there’s something different. This time when she stands up to a pack of bully’s outside school Caitlin herself changes. Suddenly she is faster and stronger but also sensitive to light and she has a desire to feed. Sound familiar? Yeah. Enter the dark, mysterious and brooding Caleb aaaaaaand start the romance! Well insta love and jealousy for Caleb is not a single man!

For Caitlin nothing’s as it seems anymore and she needs answers, but Caleb need Caitlin just as much. No, not what you think. Alright, maybe a bit! He also needs her to find a certain mysterious artifact.

The story is short. In my opinion too short to tell the story accurately, but it works. It’s an easy read with not a lot of world building and stock characters. Yet somehow the author makes it work. Caitlin and Caleb could be any pair of characters in the many vamp books out there. There’s nothing unique there, but still the story is entertaining and I found myself hoping there would be more.

What I did like about Caitlin is that she doesn’t give up. She fights back. She doesn’t just lie down and die. A girl’s gotta appreciate that!

There are also a few things that didn’t work for me. One was the relationship with her brother Sam. They are supposed to be very close, yet he suddenly ups and leaves. Then there is the instant love between Caitlin and Caleb. While instant love is nothing new, things move very very fast and I expected more from a vamp as old as Caleb. He’s what 800-something? Yet he behaves like a teenager. This is a personal peeve of mine. 800 years is a long long long time. You’d think he’d be some kind of Zen master or something. Sometimes I find that authors don’t treat the subject of age very well. What would it do to a person to live as long as a 1000 years?

In any case Turned was a likable, easy, dark read that you can read in between other books as it is short. Don’t look for depth, but you’re sure to be entertained!