Review: Insightful, different, gritty paranormal tale
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 20, 2013
I usually hate paranormal lit. I really do. It tends to be cliched, superficial, annoyingly centred on romance, and unoriginal. It's sanitized or 'fake gritty' and the characters are often unrealistic author inserts.This was absolutely none of those. While fans of the genre will still love it, those who don't care for the tired rewrites will also really dig it.Sarah and Shaun play into some cliches and stereotypes wholeheartedly and then bust them open and inside out. Dysfunctional, immature, headstrong, socially-challenged, and with layers of depth, these two characters redeemed 'hunter' storylines for me. Their various messy love interests were also wonderfully well-developed, with sympathetic moments for even the most heinous villain. They eat junk food and don't clean and complain and have trouble with their partners, and if I walked into them as I went down the street, I wouldn't be surprised. They are utterly real and unusually human.I won't spoil the plot, but I will say that Sarah's decisions make sense and were heartbreakingly understandable. Shaun, our main narrator through much of it, is movingly lonely quite often, and his alcoholism is really poignant, rather than tacked-on. He interacts genuinely with Sarah's friends and his own love interests, who are delightfully conniving. There's even some humorous bits and really funny, unique descriptions of magic. These two monster hunters lead a lonely, lonely life, and teens looking to relate to someone amazing but imperfect will love it as much as adults.My only negative comments are that the writing had some blips in style, and perhaps could have used a bit more editing. The plot also got pretty baroque, and could perhaps have had a clearer structure. The plot's debateable, though, since it had the messy realism of a real-life. I found the introduction's exposition unnecessary, but the rest of the exposition in the novel was nice and tidy.Do yourself a favour and grab this and its sequels. You won't be able to put them down.