Review: 3,5 stars. Atypical and aring vampire book.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 1, 2014
3,5 stars.This book is about a connection between a little girl (Elayna) and a vampire (Michael). How a chance encounter can change someone's life and make him want to be a better person. We follow the two main characters from Elayna's childhood to adulthood. They will struggle, make mistakes sometimes  nearly unforgivable things.Their Relationship is twice "forbidden" or atypical. First as they are different species, one should be the prey and the other the predator. Second, one is an adult and the other a young child and they should never have been able or entiteled to connect.I find very daring for an author to write about love between an adult and a child. It could easily be disgusting or even sacrilegious. But it's not.The author threads a fine line and it takes guts to do so!Of course Elayna will age and it will become easier to see both interact but still...Elayna is Michael's light, his strenght. She is wise beyond her age and that's why their Relationship is made possible. Michael is flawed but he is determined to redeem himself thanks to Elayna's guidance.So, why 3,5 stars and not 4 or 5?Here is my explanation, knowing some elements I personally found deterring coud perfectly be perceived as appealing to others.What I liked:-it's well written and even with many details of the "day to day" life of Elayna, certainly never boring;-the author took risks in developping a love story between a child and an adult (though don't worry you won't find inappropriate scenes!);-the first scene took me in from the beginning. They run, at nigh, in the cold forest, trying to escape someone or something. The girl is badly hurt and you can feel the care and the protectiveness of the man. They are scared;-Michael could be a pale copy of Edward in Twillight. He tries to make the right choices, resist temptation etc. But he is far more than that! He is too flawed and his stuggle seems much more difficult to him. He makes mistakes. In a way, it's much more appealing, more "human" but at the same time it was much more difficult to me;-Elayna's child point of view and feelings were well written (I often wonder how I would write a child's thoughts);-the story is certainly atypical.What I struggled with:-as Michael can't always resist the temptation, he'll do some shocking moves (I wont develop further). He'll regret them but when he hurt Elayna very badly, I felt betrayed, incredulous. Like: "what, their love does not protect her completely?!";-Elayna herself disappointed me when she "changed her mind". I know it was under a kind of compulsion you can't resist. You could compare with someone using drugs and it changes tremendously their behavior. Still, I had a really hard time reading this part of the book. See, I have the silly belief love conquers all. Naive, I know ...I knew Michale was flawed. I knew he struggled but the author took me by surprise. She altered their relationship, torn them apart with Michael's weakness and I didn't see it coming. I had a hard time too and was angry with the characters. Though this could precisely be viewed as positive by some readers. It certainly, again, is a dare and should be respected. The author did not chose the easy way.So thank you Shannon for giving me this book. You shook me, made me feel uncomfortable at times. You made me realise I have some beliefs or expectations in a book. And that's not an easy feeling. But you certainly did an interesting job and I'm awaiting your future books.