Review: Not Impressed, and a Terrible Example for Younger Readers.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 06 24, 2013
(Source: I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thanks to Harlequin (UK) Limited, Carina , and Netgalley.)16-year-old Sorana isn't part of the popular crowd at school, so when these two new twin students Elyse and Mel enrol at her school and befriend her, she thinks she's hit the jackpot.Elyse and Mel are into some bad things though, and soon Sorana isn't behaving like Sorana anymore, and is getting into trouble both in school and out of school.Are Elyse and Mel really some kind of witches? Are they responsible for a girl getting beaten up? Who is the mysterious boy who Sorana thinks is the most beautiful boy she's ever seen that Elyse claims never to have seen before? Why do the popular crowd no longer like the twins? Where is the twins mother? And just how deep is Sorana getting herself?This was an okay story, but it failed to really hold my attention, and the things that these girls got up to are a really bad example to set for teen readers.I think that Sorana was just trying to fit in and be popular, she wasn't part of the `in' crowd at school, and when the twins started paying her attention she got kinda caught up in it. Otherwise I think she was a pretty normal teen.Elyse was definitely the ring-leader of the twins, and seemed to be the one constantly dictating where they would go and what they would do. Mel was much quieter, but seemed to have her own little quirks and impulses - like shoplifting.Most of the story was concerned with the goings on between the twins, Sorana, and Sorana's two friends Shimmi, and Nathalie. They skipped school, drank alcohol, and generally misbehaved a lot of the time, which got them into a bit of trouble.There was a supernatural aspect to the story, with Elyse and her Ouija board, tarot cards, and star sign `forecasts', but a lot of the supernatural goings on just felt a bit underdeveloped.There was also a storyline about some girl at school who got attacked, questions over the boy and his step-brother who lived next door to the twins, and also a storyline about another boy Josh that Sorana had previously had a bit of a crush on.It was quite difficult to really know what was really going on for most of the story. A lot of things were very mysterious, and things happened that there weren't really explanations for. I felt like I wanted to know what was going on, but at the same time lost interest because there were just these endless mysterious events and no answers or clues even as to what was going on.To be quite honest I found it really difficult to get all the way through this book because I just didn't feel connected to the characters or the storyline, and although I wanted to know what was going on it felt like it would never end.Thankfully at the end of the book a lot of things were explained to the reader by Sorana, as a sort of after the events `this is what was really going on'. I have to say that I hadn't guessed half of what I was told at the end had been going on, partly because we were told things that would have been extremely difficult to guess at, and partly because it felt like things were revealed to us right at the end to back up the ending. We were told all this stuff about the twins to prove that they had problems basically. I'm trying to think of something to compare it to to explain what I mean. It was kinda like at the end of a horror movie when it's revealed that the murderer killed people because he was abused as a child or something.Anyway, there was a surprise event at the end of this book in the form of the death of one of the major characters, only strangely enough not in the way you would have expected from reading the rest of the story.Having made it all the way to the end of this book, I'd say that it's okay, but I wouldn't go further than that. I really did struggle to make it all the way through this one, and the answers at the end weren't as interesting as I had imagined they would be. I'm also really concerned about the messages this book is sending to teen readers. As a parent I'd be a little concerned about letting an impressionable teen read this because of all the dodgy stuff that the teen girls get up to in this story. There's excessive underage drinking, partying, lying, running off in the middle of the night, teens generally being unsupervised, drug taking, bunking off school, shoplifting, use of a Ouija board, bullying, pranks, girls getting into cars with older men that they don't know, driving without a licence and drink driving, possible rape, spiking of drinks, and the list goes on. Pretty shocking stuff really.Overall; not very entertaining, and a really bad example for teen readers.4 out of 10.