The blurb as seen on Goodreads:Release Date: April 23, 2013
Publisher: Month9Books
321 Pages
It’s been twenty three days since Quinn has slept for more than minutes at a time. Demons have invaded her dreams, stalking her, and whispering of her death. The lack of sleep and crippling fear are ruining her life. Energy drinks and caffeine pills don’t make a dent. When Quinn dozes off in the school hallway, Aaron, an amnesiac with a psychic ability, accidentally enters her nightmare. The demons are determined to keep them apart, and Aaron from discovering the secret locked away in his memory. Together, they could banish the darkness back to the underworld for good. That is, unless the demons kill them first.
The premise of the book is interesting enough. Girl dreams
of demons that start to bleed into her waking life. Boy, who has some physic
power himself, is able to see into her dreams and see the darkness around her. He
feels this urge to help her and she can’t say no. Along the way they find that
their journey is not what they expected.
This book started out pretty good for me. I was instantly
drawn into Quinn’s nightmares and wanted to know why she was plagued with these
horrible dreams of demons. About halfway
through, I didn’t care anymore and I just wanted her to shut up. The author did
a great job at describing the darkness that shadowed Quinn, but it was Quinn
herself who kept me from enjoying this book. That and the ending – but I’ll
talk about that later.
Quinn was the perfect high school student: beautiful,
popular, captain of the cheerleading squad, dating the football star- but all
that comes crashing down when her boyfriend up and dumps her for her nemesis,
her father left her for a new family and then she’s haunted by the nightmares
that no longer stay in the night. Her grades plummet, she loses head
cheerleader, and in a moment of weakness goes all Britney Spears and cuts off
almost all of her hair. I will admit I felt bad for her. Everyone has their
dark moments, and life threw a whole slew of them at Quinn.
When she passes out at school from not sleeping, our hero,
Aaron, enters. Aaron comes from a dark place as well. His mother and sister
were killed in an accident that he survived, only to come out of a coma with
this new found ability that allows him to see into people’s minds when he
touches them. When Quinn passes out in the hallway, Aaron gets a glimpse at
what plagues her and is instantly drawn to her, to wanting to help her, but no
matter how he tries to help, Quinn keeps pushing him away.
I started the book feeling sorry for Quinn, but then seeing
how she dealt with Aaron and constantly played the victim turned me off. Your
boyfriend cheats on you, and then parades his new girlfriend – your enemy – in front
of you, yet you still want him back and will drop everything for him? And her constant,
I
wish I could tell someone about my nightmares, but no one will believe me and I
deserve this pain, I’m a horrible person who ruins everything I touch…wah wah
wah. Grow up and take charge of your life damn it!
Besides the friends, Marcus and Teresa, Aaron was the shining
star here, but I felt that his ‘ability’ wasn’t used to its full advantage. Why
give him an ability at all if you’re not going to do anything with it? The fact
that Aaron showed up in Quinn’s dreams were never discussed between the two of
them. Why??
And the ending…talk about coming out of nowhere. I know that
the author wanted the element of surprise, but this was more like out of left
field. There was no build up to this “resolution”. I’m wondering if this
is a beginning of a series, because there was no resolution. It just ended.
Dropped a bomb and ended. Nothing was solved. Why did the shadows want her? Well, because of that
one thing she has. Yeah, but why did they want that? Why did she have
it? What was she supposed to do with it? And what about when she realizes what happened while she was out??? Gah..so frustrating.
There were definitely a lot of frustrating things in this book! I just found that the main characters were so whiny and annoying....and Marcus and Teresa were definitely much more likable as characters. Also, how creepy was the phone thing!
ReplyDeleteNara @ Looking for the Panacea
Completely agree. The author had a good idea but just executed it very poorly. I didn't connect with Quinn at all.
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