February 9, 2012

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!

8 comments:

  1. I had to look up Bean Sidhe. I can't believe I had never heard that before! :) I've seen this book around, but I've never really stopped to read what it was about. That's pretty cool!

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    1. It's quite good! I specially liked the way the myth was handled, so you might want to check it out just because of that :) I've already read book 2, even though the review won't be up for a while, and while I do have a couple of complains (like, I want to smack certain characters in the head) I still think it's a great series.

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  2. I am with Jennifer, I just had no idea. This sounds so amazing! Going to go buy it now:)

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    1. Hehe... Don't worry. Almost no one knows the original spelling - Banshee is way more familiar, but it's also more tinged with pop culture and further from the original story, so yeah. Hope you like this one, Rebecca!

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  3. Gah, you're killing me. I need to read this one too!

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    1. *laughs like the Evil Overlord who hasn't read his list* Mwahahha! My TBR pile shall be endless... but I shan't be alone! Mwhahahha! :)

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  4. hahahaha! the "WHAT" factor! Yeah I understand that Ron lol! I might be too surprised and shocked even (in a really good way) if I hadn't known their relationship before I read the book. You know Kelly! She loved it and she recommended this series a long time ago. And she did mentioned about Tod and Nash... So I wasn't as surprised anymore. But that scene when kaylee found out about Tod is one of my favorite scene in the book =D

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    1. I'd have smacked Kelly over the head (with love, of course!). I mean, it was such a great surprise, to have it spoiled... Gah!! But yes, it was a good scene nevertheless. Except, now I just can't see the love triangle really happening... We'll have to see.

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