BOOK REVIEW - My Soul To Take by Rachel Vincent

This Review is part of The Soul Screamers Reading Challenge which you can find out about here.

My Soul to Take is the first book of the Soul Screamers series and is written by Rachel Vincent author of several popular YA series including the Shifters series. The book was released in the UK on the 1st of January 2011 by Mira Books.

PLOT

Kaylee Cavanaugh just wants to be normal but it seems that life just won’t let her. Kaylee is affected by a strange condition, she can sense the impending death of those around her but whenever she does she can’t help but scream her lungs out. While Kaylee does her best to keep her ‘normal’ suddenly one of the most popular guys in school is taking a keen interest in her and he seems to know more about her than she does. Unfortunately just as Kaylee is getting used to having a guy interested in her girls around the school start dropping dead and she finds herself investigating the cause.

WHAT I THOUGHT

I have been reading YA for years now and I often hear about Rachel Vincent whether it be a suggestion from Amazon or just on book review sites talking about her series. I had kept seeing her Were-creature series around but never took the plunge; I finally decided to take a chance on Soul Screamers once I found the audio book version.

Let me first begin by saying that I did not start with My Soul To Take I went with My Soul To Lose which is a prequel released July 1 2009. I have a review of that available but I just thought you should know where I am coming from in my review.

There is a big change in tone from My Soul To Lose and we move into a setting I am familiar with a young somewhat unsure of herself teenager dealing with a host of issues and problems some that most teenagers deal with and other more exotic ones.

Kaylee is a likeable character with some serious character flaws but any good heroine needs to have some shortcomings to help you understand and sympathise with their character, the interesting thing that comes across in this book is how others often confront her about her character flaws and how she even examines them herself internally.

The pace of the book is very good too often in books things can jut stall and then speed up in a jerky sort of fashion that really makes it a different read. Here Rachel Vincent keeps everything moving at a consistent pace and you never find yourself bored or perhaps looking to put the book down for a break or something you always want to read a few more pages want to learn a little more.

There are some problems with the book but you can take that one of two ways. My issue with this book is that most of the characters except for Kaylee are lacking in depth to one degree or another. This is what I like to call book 1 syndrome as it can often prove difficult to properly flesh out your supporting character class and still work in a plot without boring the reader to death. In the end though after reading the book and deciding I wanted to read the next in the series I think the author chose the right amount of plot vs. character development.

I would recommend My Soul to Take to fans of Urban Fantasy/YA and especially people who like the Southern Vampire Mysteries as I see a lot of similarities in the style in which these books are written.