Review: VERY slightly better than Ethereal
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 10 1, 2011
I really don't understand where all the 5-star reviews are coming from.  I'm pretty sure a lot of them are the author's friends.  I've noticed that there are many reviews on random blog sites of this book and the first response to every review is from the author, gushing her thanks for the nice review.The writing is very juvenile and the editing is awful.  There are so many awkward sentences and misspelled words (rouge instead of rogue, heard instead of herd, etc).  One line that is used way too many times throughout these books is "I pulled a face."  I don't even know what that means!I read this book and the third book back to back, and now when I am trying to think of particulars from Tremble I can't because the two books are basically the same.  There's no originality between them to make either one unique.  I apologize in advance if I mix up some things that happened in the two books.**** spoilers below ****This book is basically a repeat of book one.  Skyla makes out with Logan and Gage a lot.  She claims to be madly in love with Logan, soul mates, yada yada yada.... then the very next page she'll be making out with Gage and stating that she and Gage are going to have a "real" relationship.  I am all about a good love triangle, but Skyla seems to want to have both boys.  She has no qualms about making out with one, then the other.  The characters emotions are also all over the place.  It's common for Skyla to get insanely jealous/angry over Logan flirting with another girl (which he always has some stupidly contrived reason for doing), but then on the next page without any conflict resolution, Skyla and Logan are making out and confessing their undying love for each other.  Where's the segue?!Some of the makeout scenes are decent, but most are so terrible I nearly gave myself a concussion with all the facepalming.  We get steamy, romantic lines like, "I lay it all out on the line, slobbering over Gage like a rabid Saint Bernard."  Imagining massive amounts of drool dripping off of Gage's face really gets me going!In this book a THIRD boy shows up for Skyla to make out with - Marshall.  He is a super angel masquerading as her TEACHER and desperately wants to have sex with Skyla and marry her.  No one seems to think it's weird that the teacher is banging half the female students at the school (Skyla walks in on Marshall having sex with one of her classmates AT THE SCHOOL).  No one seems to have a problem with the teacher calling a student rude names in front of the entire class.  No one seems to think it's weird that the teacher wants Skyla to model almost nude on his horse (in fact, Skyla's mother pretty much forces her to do it).Marshall also has the ability to show Skyla visions of the future, but only if she makes out with him.  So she often makes out with him to see these visions, not caring that she's supposedly in love with Logan and having a "real" relationship with Gage.  She says sweet things like "Yeah, I'm into Gage, but only when I'm with him."Time travel is another big part of the book, though mostly Skyla time travels (aka "light drives") to get pot with her friend Ellis and visit dead Chloe.  She and Chloe act like they hate each other, but then call themselves best friends/sisters.  Chloe is always grinning wickedly, looking evil, acting crazy... but Skyla keeps on visiting her.The time travel parts I actually enjoyed were when she visited her father and tried to change the past.  I found this to be very realistic and interesting - something a girl who desperately misses her father would actually do if she had the ability to time travel.  Of course, Skyla can't change the past and no matter what she does her father still dies that day.Skyla also gets seriously injured during these books a lot, but it doesn't really seem to bother her.  In this book, she gets her ARM CUT OFF.  But it's all good, Gage and Logan go take dead Chloe's decomposed arm and they attach it to her no biggie.  Within hours she is fully healed and feeling great!  She's a Celestra, she has super healing and regenerative powers!Realizing that she has uber regenerative powers, Skyla decides that the best way to stop Marshall (aka her TEACHER) from constantly making out with her is to use her blood to bring Chloe back from the dead because SURELY Marshall will fall in love with Chloe and leave Skyla to only have two boys to slobber over every other page.W ... T ... H ...I'm not sure why I bought the entire series and keep reading.  I think it's partially because the underlying story/world is actually interesting despite the author butchering it to pieces.  It's also like that train wreck you just can't stop looking at no matter how hard you try.  I really think that there is potential here, but the author is churning these books out every two months.  I wonder how much better they would be if she slowed down a little, streamlined the plot and worked on creating really good scenes instead of dozens and dozens of choppy, short, awkward scenes.