Customer Reviews

Raven

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Nicole has been in love with Zin since the first time she saw him dance. There is something about him that pulls her deeper and deeper into his soul. It's in the way he moves, the way he talks and the way he can be everything without saying anything at all. He is the one who makes her feel safe and normal when her life is anything but. When her addict brother causes trouble, Zin eases her pain. He has even inspired her to do some dancing of her own. As close as they are, they have only been friends. This is fine with Nicole because she needs to be near him and it is obvious that Zin needs to be near her. Zin believes in Nicole. Nicole loves Zin.

Sometimes, things that seem too good to be true, truly are. There has always been something that keeps Zin from completely giving himself to Nicole. When she gets a job in the nightclub where Zin works, she will learn that there is a dark secret that binds the other employees together. Nicole will find out about Zin's past and discover that it goes back much farther than she expected. The burden of this secret is dangerous but it brings them together. They will have to decide if their love and passion are more important than the consequences of eternity or if maybe, they are one and the same.

Raven is one of those books that you don't quite know what to expect from, but it will leave you breathless. The story is dark, mesmerizing, mystical and romantic. You will feel an attachment to each character, no matter how small a part they play. This is one book I will remember, evermore.

I was very pleased with "Raven". I didn't really know what to expect from this new release by Diepen, but when I picked up "Raven" and started reading I was instantly sucked into the world of Nicole.

The author did an excellent job of weaving together elements of urban life, fantasy, family, and love. Nicole is a teenager whose passion is break dancing with her friends. She lives in the city and frequents a club called Evermore where one of her break dancing buddies, and long time crush, Zin works. At home things are a bit stressful. Nicole's brother, John, has become addicted to drugs and it's tearing her family apart. He still calls home to demand money from his parents, and Nicole blames him for the destruction of her home life. When Nicole starts to work at Evermore with Zin on the weekends she starts to make some discoveries that change her perspective on the world.

I was so happy to read through such a fun well written adventure. The romance plot is done very well, and I love that the reader can really see why these characters are interested in each other. I have never known much about break dancing, but Diepen writes about it in a way that anyone can understand and enjoy. There were definitely moments of suspense and surprise. Basically this book had all of the elements you look for in a young adult paranormal urban fantasy novel. Kick back, relax, and have fun.

I enjoy YA fiction even though I'm in my mid-twenties, but there were times when I had to put this book down and remind myself to be patient with Nicole's, the narrator, thoughts and feelings. Yet there were also times when I found myself reminiscing about my life as a teenager, which now seems hundreds of years gone. Author Allison van Diepen does a remarkable job of capturing the emotions and fears of a girl who's home life is anything but pleasant and her deep feelings for her best friend who's more then he seems.

Nicole has been in love with Zin for a few years. He's her escape when she wants to be away from her troubled home and thoughts of her druggie brother. She gets in to break dancing because of him and even gets a job at the bar where he works.

I will focus on the parts which struck me. First, I liked the choppy writing style. It goes well with modern teenagers' ways of telling stories (when they want to) and reads like chunks of a diary, the parts she wants you to read. The only thing that bothered me was that Nicole would tell the reader, "I was starting to get freaked out" or "I was really bummed." I wanted to see these parts, her fear and her disappointment, rather than be told she was.

The relationship between Nicole and her best friend/love Zin wasn't very realistic. I liked the fact that he helped her out of her turmoil by introducing her to dancing, but I didn't see the fire Nicole would always mention was between them. They were good as friends only. Also, her other friends and her co-workers were very one dimensional. The head of the club, Carlo, felt like one of those overly mysterious villains from the old noir films, always lurking in the shadows and speaking in cryptic messages.

When Zin finally confesses his secret, that he is in fact an immortal who stays alive by consuming souls, Nicole wants to cut off all contact with him, but through a series of events she finds herself interacting with him again and her infatuation grows. She is in awe that he "helps people" and begins to think that if she joins him they can be together forever. This is where Nicole began to remind me of Bella Swan from "Twilight," who is my most un-favorite character ever written. But instead of diving head first into her decision, Nicole actually takes the time to reason the pros and cons of what it means to become what Zin is. Smart girl. Of course she believes that she wants to stay with Zin forever, but what if she falls out of love with him? Forever is a very long time to be with someone.

The descriptions of dancing, of which Nicole is an enthusiast, are fun but you have to know the steps to be able to picture them. And they never explained what happened with her parents after her brother left.

But this story is a decent read in spite of the shortcomings. I like the fact that Nicole takes the time to come up with her theories on immortality even though she forgives Carlo for saving her brother even though she said no. She also matures when she realizes that she has been using Zin as a crutch to escape her life instead of facing her problems head on.

Not a strong story; it had some good ideas but didn't live up to its potential.

I'm not going to give anything away or have any spoilers. The book was just OK for me. It started VERY slow and ended way too fast. I'm a 32 year old woman who still feels quite young but some of the slang in this book... I didn't get it. I had to look up the meanings of some of the words so I could visualize. It felt like the author just got tired of writing so she wrapped up the whole story in 5 pages. It was disappointing. I would've loved to hear more about what happened to the characters after the climax to the story. :(

The plot of this book was pretty good, but it was hard to get past Van Diepen's halting writing style. I generally read a book within a day of buying it, but because the writing style was so laconic, I could not read Raven for very long before getting bored and putting the book down. This is perhaps a comment more on the intended audience of Raven than it is on the book itself, but the case remains that I had hoped for a lot more from this book than a startlingly independent (in the sense that she works until 4 am and is still in high school) teen in her first bout of puppy love.
On a positive note, however, I absolutely loved the character of Zin, Nicole's love interest, and did not find this book to be overly Twilight-esque, as teen and young adult novels so often are nowadays. More detail and characterization would have aided Raven tremendously, and I fervently hope that if there is a sequel, its prose will flow much more easily.

I usually don't put a recap of what a book is about in the review because I figured if you've made it this far you probably know what the book is about. But I'm going to have to put a little in this review. So be warned of SPOILERS... Basically, Raven is about a young girl named Nicole who has become involved in break-dancing and working in an underground club. She works with a guy named Zin, who not only is a fantastic dancer, but she loves him.

The premise of this book was intriguing because it was different reading about this type of world, learning the breakers dance moves and having a "hero" that wasn't your typical American boy. Zin is from Yemen, and as we find out, born 200 years ago.

After an attack, Nicole is saved by Zin, and then proceeds to see him consume the attackers soul when he dies. This leads to unveiling that Zin is a creature of myth, a type of vampire that consumes souls to be immortal, called the Jiang-shi. Of course, he only consumes the souls of "lost people", like bad guys or drug addicts.

This book fell flat in many places. First, there was supposed to be this huge almost-forbidden love between Zin and Nicole, but there was absolutely no chemistry between them. The love was very contrived.

Second, Nicole's brother is saved by being turned into an immortal and his transformation is so abrupt it's almost worthless in the story. His being involved really has no place and the author, Allison van Diepen, uses him to try to advance Nicole's involvement in the Jiang-shi.

And last, the book ends with what I like to call a "cop out". Since the brother was turned into a Jiang-Shi, and to give a happy ending Ms. van Diepen gives a lame excuse to save Zin and give him and Nicole a way to be together.

I was very disappointed with this book, and very glad I got it from the library. I would suggest doing that first before buying it, and save some money.

The book itself is about a teenager named Nicole, who falls in love with the Zin. Zin seems like the normal guy, but then something amazing happens and Nicole knows he's more then human. Sound familiar? If you've read Twilight it does.

I was excited to read this story, it had great potential. My only problem was that I felt that I was reading Twilight with different characters in a different setting. Which sounds like it isn't Twilight at all, but trust me, even some of the dialog is similar. (Spoilers ahead) And the situation that set up the whole "more then human" thing felt similar, and then Nic even has a conversation with Carlos, Zin's father figure, that felt remarkably like Bella's conversation with Carlisle. There were just moments throughout the book like that, that annoyed me on a minor level.

The plot is somewhat muted, I almost felt like there wasn't any conflict at all till the last hundred or less pages. The conflict is resolved, I don't see there being another book. If anything people should pick this book up because of the twists at the end. I can give the author credit for that, the ending was surprising, which is nice.

Overall the book is okay, the characters are believable, and the situations they're in is kinda interesting (or if you're like me and know nothing about break dancing extremely interesting). The plot just falls flat and feels slow, and I wish I could have gotten to know more about some of the minor characters.

Raven is extremely easy to read, utterly captivating and very hard to put down. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I enjoyed what van Diepen had up her sleeve!

I really loved the balance between fantasy, love, and this sort of hip urban feel. The relationship between Zin and Nic was intense, I appreciated the fact that they weren't afraid to share their deepest, darkest secrets with each other, and I loved how their relationship grew. And not in a superficial lust way.

Some of the characters fell a little flat for me. The night club group, were by far the most intriguing, I really enjoyed learning about their history and wished it had been further divulged.

I had no idea what was going on during the dance battle scenes. The lingo meant absolutely nothing to me. I think a glossary to better explain the terms might have been a good idea. I knew enough from pop culture about what was happening, I just wasn't able to distinguish the type of dance move that was being portrayed, but I didn't feel like it took away from the story itself.

The ending seemed really rushed for me, but overall Raven was a captivating, and enjoyable read. I recommend it for fantasy/romance fans.

While the aspect and plot of Raven was definitely enjoyable, I didn't like it nearly as much as I thought I would.

Raven was definitely enthralling. Diepen knows exactly how to draw the reader in and leave them hanging and wanting more. I was constantly curious about the Jiang Shi and their past as well as the eerie characters that seemed to fit right into that world. The story weaves a dark mystery that will keep you on your toes, and despite my overall disinterest in the book, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to get into.

I think this probably would`ve worked better in third person. Nothing seemed to flow for me. For most of the book, the writing felt stiff and choppy, and not nearly emotive enough to be the inside of Nic, the main protagonists, head. I think this is ultimately what turned me off, as well as the hurried ending that came entirely too quickly.

Overall, Raven wasn't my cup of my tea. But I will recommend it to any paranormal lovers in the mood for something light and easy to read. With a swoon-worthy love story and a new kind of supernatural race, it's worth checking out!

I have to admit I picked this book up at the library because I liked the cover. I was a bit worried about dedicating time to reading it because it kind of sounded like another "Twilight" wanna' be. In many ways that it what it ended up being, although it was different in a lot of ways too. Still, I thought the story was just okay and I got through it, but didn't find it an especially enjoyable read.

Nic, or Raven, works at a bar with a lot of awesome people. For some reason she is drawn to Zin the bartender. Zin and Nic are also on a brake-dance team together. Zin, of course, is incredibly handsome and is an awesome dancer, and seems drawn to Nic in return. When Zin protects Nic from being mugged one night, Nic sees a light move into Zin from the attacker. Now Nic thinks that Zin may not quite be human. She needs to figure out what he is and why he continually rebuffs her, even though he clearly loves her.

This wasn't all that great of a book. If the plotline sounds familiar, well it is. It is your basic awesome guy and girl fall in love, but can't be together because awesome guy is not human. But, awesome guy just sees something special in girl that makes him want to break all the rules and try to have a relationship with her. Except in this case the girl loves to break dance.

The plot wasn't all that engaging. It kind of focused around Nic's brother's drug addiction and then around Nic trying to decide if she wanted to become "other" like Zin. There wasn't really much outside force driving this plot somewhere interesting. The way everything ends up was fairly predictable too. The characters themselves are pretty 2D; I didn't really love any of them. The society of Jiang Shi lacked depth and seemed kind of pieced together; it didn't really fit into the world well and was secluded to this small group.

There were a couple other things that bothered me too. The first was that Nic is in high school and works nights at a bar. It was strange; I really didn't know any high-schoolers that served drinks at a bar...I guess I thought you had to be older to do that. Most of the story takes place in this dance club/bar though. It was just odd. The other is the writing style. Van Diepen mostly writes in very short sentences without much description. It makes the writing style a bit sparse and simplistic; I guess it results in a very easy reading level, but it took something out of the story.

The last thing that bothered me (but others may like) is that a lot of time was spent discussing break-dancing moves. I personally don't know (or care) much about break-dancing/hip-hop. It is just outside of the realm of things I am interested in. So, I honestly found these long scenes of practice and dance battle to be boring. Someone who is really into that might dig that about this book, but not me.

As I write the review, I realize that their really was't much I liked about the story. I got through it, it was a quick read. The story wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great. I honestly don't think I can recommend this as a great read. I suppose if you are looking for filler reading with the whole "we can't be together because you are immortal" premise, you might like this. But, honestly there are so many better young adult books out there. You can check out Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, Book 1), Generation Dead, or Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception. All of these are better books and touch on immortal love.