Review: My Soul to Take, by Rachel Vincent

Author: Rachel Vincent

Title: My Soul To Take

Series: Soul Screamers (#1)

ISBN: 9780373210039

Publisher: Harlequin Teen (July 29th 2009)

Buy your copy: Kindle | Paperback

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“She doesn't see dead people. She senses when someone near her is about to die. And when that happens, a force beyond her control compels her to scream bloody murder. Literally.    

Kaylee just wants to enjoy having caught the attention of the hottest guy in school. But a normal date is hard to come by when Nash seems to know more about her need to scream than she does. And when classmates start dropping dead for no apparent reason, only Kaylee knows who'll be next.” GoodReads’ blurb

And now I understand where all the riot was coming from! Now I see the why behind the excitement, behind the wild cheering with each new title!

Soul Screamers rocks, to put it simply.

Since I like to put it complicately, I’ll elaborate on that.

I think that by this point, I’m not spoiling a thing if I say that Kaylee is a Bean Sidhe. Which is not just original, but also right up my alley – myth and fairy tales and everything.

The trick, the masterful trick of Rachel Vincent here, is to take the myth and spin it to make it true to itself AND original at the same time.

I said original twice, I know. But we have to admit that there’s not often that we run into a series starred by the wailing heralds of death. I’d not have thought these particular creatures to hold much interest in the way of main characters, and much less would I have expected them to be able to use their abilities, their gifts. I mean, screaming when someone’s going to die? What use can that be?

Lots. Believe me. It could be life-altering, actually. All because of that spin put in by Ms. Vincent involving Nash.

You’ve probably read this book, even before I did, but I’m not going to spoil it anyway. Let’s talk a bit about Nash instead.

He’s a sweety. Technically a jock, the kind of guy all the girls would go for – and who doesn’t mind being caught if you know what I mean – he suddenly finds something in Kaylee that could mean she’s the one.

At first, I didn’t understand. Kaylee likes him, of course, how could she not? But she didn’t understand why she had his attention either, and so she didn’t trust him. Until he tells her a lot of secrets that she should have known... and then she accepts that he’s in this, for her.

For her, or for what she is?

That’s a question that lingers in the back of Kaylee’s head, and I love it. I love that it takes time for her to warm up to Nash in spite of his looks and charm, and I love that she still has moments of insecurity. It gives her a trace of normalcy that helps in relating to her, and it also shows her strength – how easy would it be, to be wooed by the local hottie?

The love story takes first place once the mystery of what’s going on with Kaylee fades, and it shares the lead with the very interesting issue of, why is people dropping off dead? One every day, all healthy and young and pretty, with not a single reason behind their deaths.

Nash and Kaylee recruit a Grim Reaper to help, someone Nash knew back in the day. The guy is hot, bordering the line between mysterious and creepy, and he decides to help more because he likes Kaylee than because of Nash.

The Reapers were another great addition. Their lore, too. Can’t talk much about it, but you have heard the expression, “it was his time”, right? Well, this series gives it a whole new meaning.

Thanks to Todd, the Reaper, Kaylee and Nash manage (kind of) to solve the mystery of the dying girls – and I admit, I didn’t see that one coming! Maybe I was being obtuse or something, but I had one huge “what?!” moment when the final face-off went down.

Had another “what?!” moment when we learned why Nash knew a Reaper, who’s supposed to be the natural enemy of a Bean Sidhe.

The great kind of “what”, though.

The story was fast, tight, with good characters that I can’t wait to read more about. The romance was sweet and mostly belieable, specially for a YA romance. I’d recommend My Soul to Take without a second thought!