Carrier of the Mark by Leigh Fallon

All Megan wants when she moves to Ireland is to fit in. But this seems unlikely when she catches the attention of the famously anti-social, famously hot Adam DeRis. Megan knows she has a connection with Adam from first glance. But what Megan doesn’t know is that Adam is one of the four rare Carriers of the Mark—and so is she. Able to control one of the four elements, she and the other three Carriers are in constant danger from those who wish to control them. The fear of being captured and exploited might be bearable if Megan had Adam to comfort her, but an ancient prophecy foretells great destruction if two Carriers ever get together.

The relationship between Adam and Megan is, in my opinion, unbelievable and slightly clichéd. Adam has perfected his Edward Cullen stalker gaze, and he shares Edward’s propensity for confessions of deep and undying love in the early stages of casual dating. Although, technically, Adam and Megan are secretly spying stalking keeping tabs on one another for a while before that first date, so I guess he knows her well enough.

Although the madly-in-love-at-first-sight type of romance is overdone and flinch-worthy, the ultimate let down is the star-crossed lover aspect. Here’s the thing: If Adam and Megan have a baby, then the world will implode. Great twist, right? Who cares that they’re still in high school? Who cares that they’ve only been dating for a few months? Their relationship will undoubtedly lead to babies. Multiple babies. Yep, this is the type of paranormal YA novel where talking about baby making and the earth’s ultimate demise as one in the same is a major plot point.
The Carrier if the Mark reminds me in plot and characters of Hourglass, Hush, Hush, and The Seven Rays. If you like those books, I would recommend trying The Carrier of the Mark. But if you’re not a die-hard paranormal romance fan, there’s nothing spectacular about the formulaic romance to make The Carrier of the Mark stand out in the vast genre of YA paranormal fiction.

Witch Eyes by Scott Tracey

Summary:

Braden was born with witch eyes: the ability to see the world as it truly is: a blinding explosion of memories, darkness, and magic. The power enables Braden to see through spells and lies, but at the cost of horrible pain.

After a terrifying vision reveals imminent danger for the uncle who raised and instructed him, Braden retreats to Belle Dam, an old city divided by two feuding witch dynasties. As rival family heads Catherine Lansing and Jason Thorpe desperately try to use Braden's powers to unlock Belle Dam's secrets, Braden vows never to become their sacrificial pawn. But everything changes when Braden learns that Jason is his father--and Trey, the enigmatic guy he's falling for, is Catherine's son.
To stop an insidious dark magic from consuming the town, Braden must master his gift—and risk losing the one he loves.


Review:

The summary alone forced me to move Witch Eyes to the top of my reading list. Bradon's power (or curse) to see past memories and the seemingly invisible spells cast on him is something I have always wanted to see in YA but rarely have. In my mind, it isn't the type of power that makes a person extraordinarily strong, but it does make a person valuable. Valuable people equal action. Action, if done right, equals a good book. All this depended in the Witch Eyes.

     Sadly, even to the end of the book, I could not fully define a witch, the powers that come with the Witch Eyes, or what is in the supernatural universe of Witch Eyes. At the supernatural bits I would try to reread the explanations on how the supernatural works, but the explanations muddled and explained little or nothing about what I needed to know. I gave up on trying to understand the confusing world of the witches in about halfway through the book, that is when it started getting really confusing.

      Bradon's thoughts could sometimes be funny but also erratic. A thought on hot Abercrombie dude becomes pages on explaining Brandon's gayness. The falling-in-love-with-the-enemy's-son thingy looks hard to mess up on, but the romantic side of the plot got old fast. The OMG, a guy this hot has to be straight phase to the OMG, a gay guy this hot can't be my family's century old rival's son did not do much to make me like or connect with Trey. And because the supernatural was a huge part of the romance I barely understood half of who Trey is. It was confusing about how much of the supernatural world he was actually a part of and why.
    
      It wasn't for me, but the the sarcastic voice of Bandon made me have to read the book through. Although I wont probably pick up the sequel, I could see why die-hard fans of paranormal romance would.

Vanish by Sophie Jordan

In Vanish, the second book in the Firelight trilogy, Jacinda returns home to the enclave. But home isn’t home anymore. Kept in a constant lockdown, Jacinda is forced to completely reevaluate the relationships with the people she loves. Seeing Will has become just a fantasy, never to happen, and Cassian isn’t as coldhearted as he used to seem… but when Jacinda is given the impossible chance to meet with Will again, how can she refuse?




Lately all the second books in the trilogies I read have been disappointing. Since Firelight is one of my favorite paranormal romance books ever, I hoped that Vanish could beat the Second Book Slump. Maybe. At first I could almost believe that Vanish had the Slump beaten. In the first chapter, everything is what I expected: fast-paced with crazy awesome twists.



But then Vanish slows down. Nothing, well, Firelight worthy happens. Mostly, Jacinda spends her time mending old relationships and starting new ones—like with Cassian (eww!). The thing about Vanish is that singular events are taken out of proportion and made overly dramatic. Too many chapters are wasted on Jacinda’s thoughts about what she needs to do and grievances over the slights of her community. I wanted something to wow me, but nothing especially pops out.



I’m Team Will. I LOVE the whole hunter-falling-in-love-with-the-hunted thingy. There is so much potential in those kinds of relationships. But Cassian? Who needs him? Though some parts of Vanish really did make me want to go to the dark side (after all, they have cookies), Jacinda and Cassian simply don’t have enough chemistry to convince me that they could be happy together.



So, Vanish doesn’t quite compare to Firelight’s impossibly awesome standards. But I haven’t abandoned the series; based on how Vanish ends, the final book in the Firelight trilogy looks like it’s going to be the best of them all.



You can also view this review on Figment

Fury by Elizabeth Miles

Emily Winters is crushing hard on the deep, soulful Zach McCord, and she is positive that he has feelings for her, too. Em feels awful about the fact that Gabby, her best friend, is already dating Zach, but she knows that he deserves better. Em is better.

Chase Singer wants nothing more than to forget his past. When he meets the gorgeous and mysterious Ty, he leaps at a chance to forget it all. He never expects to fall in love. But instead of helping him forget, Ty makes him remember his horrible past even more. Chase is sorry about what happened, and Em wishes Gabby could forgive her.

But sometimes sorry and begging for forgiveness isn’t good enough. The Furies live to make them pay.


I was sucked into Fury from the first page. I loved the detail-oriented writing. You know the “oh-just-one-more-page” books? Well, Fury is an “oh-just-one-more-sentence” book. I tried to stop, but every sentence begged me to keep on reading. The writing allowed me to feel closer to the characters then I do in most third-person narratives.

Em-the-boyfriend-stealer and Chase-the-player are two characters that don’t seem to be likable, but I ended up loving them both. They (obviously) have their flaws, and at times I loved to hate them (Hello, Em? Does the phrase, “Once a cheater, always a cheater,” ring any bells? Of course not, you… you ninny). Other times I wanted to forgive them because I could see that, despite everything, they didn’t deserve what was happening to them. No one does.


The only reason why I can’t give Fury the full five stars is because of the paranormal aspect. Fury is kinda, sorta supposed to be paranormal, I guess, but for the beginning and middle of the book I would’ve classified it as a mysterious drama with slight paranormal undertones. In the last quarter, I felt that Fury plays a rushed game of catch-up on the paranormalacy part of the novel. It partway succeeds.

Fans of Pretty Little Liars will love Fury’s thickly suspenseful drama. I will definitely be looking out for the next book in the trilogy, Envy. Four and a half figmentstars.

You can also see this review on Figment.

P.S.
  Sorry for being absent on this whole month. A reasonable excuse would be that I just started high school, and my thoughts are now constantly swinging between, "this isn't so hard compared to middle school, why did everyone make a big deal out of this?" And, also, "why in the world did I take an AP and a seminar as a FRESHMAN? If I was really smart enough to pass those classes, I wouldn't have taken them." That is my impressive fake excuse.

   My real reason: I got addicted to Lost. Any other Lost fans here? On that last episode I bawled... So really, I have no excuse.

But no worries!

I'm baaack!