Author: Leigh Fallon
Pages: 382
Publisher: HarperTeenGenre: Young Adult / Fantasy
First Published: October 4, 2011
First Line: “Flames engulfed the boat, and my lungs ached as dark, noxious smoke filled the air.”
Buy it from: Amazon
Book Trailer:
The GIST (From Goodreads):
Their love was meant to be.
When Megan Rosenberg moves to Ireland, everything in her life seems to fall into place. After growing up in America, she's surprised to find herself feeling at home in her new school. She connects with a group of friends, and she is instantly drawn to darkly handsome Adam DeRÍs.
But Megan is about to discover that her feelings for Adam are tied to a fate that was sealed long ago—and that the passion and power that brought them together could be their ultimate destruction.
When Megan Rosenberg moves to Ireland, everything in her life seems to fall into place. After growing up in America, she's surprised to find herself feeling at home in her new school. She connects with a group of friends, and she is instantly drawn to darkly handsome Adam DeRÍs.
But Megan is about to discover that her feelings for Adam are tied to a fate that was sealed long ago—and that the passion and power that brought them together could be their ultimate destruction.
I don't know, maybe I've become cynical about Young Adult literature but most of the things I've read lately have tended to be really predictable and unfulfilling. Trying to copy someone else's success by following nearly the exact same model and thinking people won't see the obvious.
When I first read the synopsis of the book, I really was interested to see what the author would do with the Irish setting; it's not often I read a book set in another country (well, another real country anyway) so I thought Oh yeah she's going to somehow work in some Irish folklore or something into the story. Sure, girl moves to new place, starts new school is played out, but Ireland! Ireland! This was gonna be good (rubs hands in glee)....
(End of Book) Poop. She really did absolutely nothing with it. NOTHING! How it was even possible to take a book set in Ireland, one of the most magical places I can think of, and take the magic out of it? I really can't be sure.
Moving past the setting, the story was just a snoozle fest (and, yes, I meant snoozle. It's worse than a snooze fest). Again another Twi 2.0 but I'm so tired of that comparison that I'm not even going to go into it.
It had a lot of potential but ended up becoming cliche and, in my opinion, not very well thought out. The world building was confusing at best and half the time I had no idea what the hell the problem was with Megan and Adam being together. They fell in love instantly and had almost no interaction the rest of the book but yet their love was forbidden and she would give anything, I mean anything, to not lose it. I like that kind of forbidden thing, it just didn't feel like it was even worth saving.
As for the magic/fantasy part, the whole thing with different elements was interesting, it just really didn't make sense most of the time. Maybe Megan's powers will be better explained further on, but it just seemed like the magic part was just thrown in there to say "Hey, this is a fantasy book" to hide the fact it was about two teenagers in an average puppy love book. No one really likes an average book though, even with fantasy mixed in.
OVERALL:
It was something you've read before even if you never read it before. Disappointing to me. I wouldn't read the sequel----2.0
