Review: its OK ***possible spoilers included***
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 12, 2012
overall, great story AFTER you get through the first few slow (fairly meaningless) chapters.i could have done without the story of her starting college, etc.  everything about her parents dying & her starting college should have been condensed down to 1 chapter.  i got so bored waiting for SOMETHING, ANYTHING interesting to happen that i almost stopped reading it.  in fact, i got so bored i though "why did i download this book?" and signed onto amazon to reread the summary to see what it was SUPPOSED to be about (because you certainly wont know what the book is really supposed to be about for the first few chapters).not only that, the characters of the college roommates that are introduced in the first few useless chapters are never heard from again for the remainder of the book - making them fairly useless.  it would be different if the book went back to the roommates worried about her - with Cat finally deciding to go look for her in the mountains (which even still wouldnt make any sense w/ maddie in a wheelchair as far as cat knows).  or maybe maddie went & shopped for her own clothes a city or 2 away & cat saw her & started searching for her or something.  then maybe cat could be written back into the end of the book or in the next book as a love interest for one of the other brothers (hopefully ryk for obvious reasons).  but no... we never hear from them again other than the mention by maddie that cat lost her virginity in high school & it sucked (and what a friend maddie turned out to be for sharing something like THAT with others).i didnt like how, when he thought maddie was disrespectful in the cave, how he grabbed her arm & mashed so hard she thought it would break, only letting up when the pain became almost intolerable.  uh... a man who uses physical pain to make his point is NOT a good romantic lead in my opinion - especially when this is supposed to be a book geared for young readers.  i think that was out of character for rayn (after reading the entire book, i dont think that was something he would have done).  i dont think that he would have lost control of himself over her smarting off or "disrespecting" anyone - especially to the point where he would hurt a female of a smaller, weaker (physically inferior) species.  thats just sorry.i also could have done without all the repetition of maddie & rayn's thoughts/feelings towards each other.  i mean seriously, i understand how they could constantly THINK each other was the most beautiful thing ever, but do we have to see their those same thoughts in print each time they think it?  after reading about the "you're so beautiful" "i love you" "i want to jump your bones" thoughts for about 5th time, it started getting really old.  after the 10th time or so, it was painful to read.i also prefer a book that tells a complete story - even if its only a SUBstory and there are unresolved issues.  this book ends on a cliffhanger where NO ONE's story is resolved.i also think it is obvious that maddie is somehow hybrid (since it is mentioned in the beginning of her rescue that she has "the mark" on her back - which to me was a dead giveaway that she has the alien marking that all of them have somewhere on their bodies when theyre born AND how she could hear thoughts when tortured) SOOOOO it was a disappointment that there were no more clues dropped at all about this.  would there not be ANYTHING else the family would notice about a hybrid?  would they not be able to see it at all?  would maddie not have mentioned thinking she heard others thoughts when her parents died and when she was tortured when they talked about hearing others thoughts?  why was it never mentioned again that she had "the mark" on her back?the best part of the whole book was the part where rayn hears her towards the end & goes bat-crap crazy.