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31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disjointed story with flat characters and loads of casual sex and drug use, June 2, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I got this book through Amazon Vine. I was excited to get it because I actually had this book on my wish list. Boy was I disappointed.
The concept is interesting. Dice has some psychic ability. When her friend Pen falls from a tree and dies for a moment; Pen's body is entered by the spirit of Sinclair (Sin). Sin was wrongly murdered many, many years ago and wants revenge against the town of Swoon (where they all live). Sins presence makes Pen act out and Dice tries to exorcise Sin; instead she ends up giving him a physical body that allows him to wreck havoc in person instead of through Pen.
Okay if the premise sounds interesting, it is. Unfortunately the execution of the story left a lot to be desired. All of the characters come across as stereotypical and flat. The story itself is inconsistent and disjointed; chapters end in the middle of a scene only to have new chapters start in a completely different setting. It leaves wondering if some pages fell out of the book or something. An example of this: a big deal is made about how Dice need to hitchhike to get someone to drive her back to New York city, she meets a psychic there. In the middle of their meeting the chapter ends. In the next chapter Dice is suddenly back in Swoon getting ready for a Halloween party. How did she get back to Swoon? A big deal was made about how she got out of Swoon, so how did she suddenly get back? What happened to her meeting with the psychic? I mean really would it hurt to have some consistency?
I also had a bit of a problem with this being dubbed a young adult novel. Throughout the novel drug use runs rampant. We are talking use of every kind of drug you can think of; it is casual use with no real purpose to the story. The drug use is such that every single character in the book casually uses drugs; it really gives the message that all young teens casually use drugs and I found it kind of disturbing. Which leads to the problem of the casual sexuality in this book too. I am all for liberal sex (big fan of the Anita Blake books here); but when you have young adults having loads of casual sex among themselves, trying to seduce teachers, and descriptions of casual sex between senior citizens...it was all just a bit weird for me. I would have been uncomfortable reading this as a "young adult".
Now let's briefly discuss Sin and Dice's "relationship". There is no relationship. Dice loves Sin (for no reason) and Sin constantly abuses her emotionally and occasionally physically. Still somehow Dice and Sin are supposed to be the ultimate star-crossed couple...ummm no, they are just dysfunctional. I found many of the characters' relationships with each other to be equally disturbing and unhealthy. I also never really got the point of the story.
Some of the above could be excused if the story was fast-paced, engaging, or fun to read. Unfortunately it is none of those. I had a lot of trouble getting through the book; believe it or not all of the sex and drug use was so prevalent it got very boring to read about. The whole time I read this book I was just counting down the pages, hoping that soon I would get to the end of it.
I usually try to find something positive to say about a book; but seriously I did not like this book and I have nothing positive to say about it.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
I suffered through until the very end, hopefully so you won't have to, August 11, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I suppose the formula here is the supernatural teen romance ala "Twilight", but I think this book would be a complete turn off to most teens who read it. The plot is strange without being appealing. The narration voice is a teenage girl who switches back and forth between very contrived and inauthentic teen lingo and saying things that wouldn't mean much to anyone under 30; I found it very distracting.
The "love" story is weird. I never saw where the love came from--it came out of nowhere and made me feel like I missed something, 100 pages of story development maybe? ...but sadly that was not the case. The male love interest, Sin, is an abusive narcissist. Our damsel in distress, Dice, is obviously emotionally damaged to want him in the first place, although that baggage is never explained. Dice tells us on page one she has some sort of psychic ability masked as epilepsy...part of the story line, possibly? ...no, it is never mentioned again other than one line of dialog where someone asks Dice if she is having a seizure. Okay.
To top it all off the names are all terribly irritating; names converted to monosyllabic monikers (i.e. Candice becomes Dice) that we are supposed to believe are cool or trendy...you tell me:
Dice, Sin, Pen, Doll, Con, Marsh, Gel, Crane, El and Em (really), Duck, Wick, Boz, No and Way (not making those two up, either)
Rarely have I read a book and could not find one positive thing to say about it. The best I could come up with for this one is the book cover is nice.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Sin is coming prepare to swoon????? Really???, July 13, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I'm not sure what to rate this book. I forced myself to finish it, but it was not that great of book. It was boring and that's sad considering the premise of the book is one of psychics, souls invading bodies and revenge. Instead it's about casual sex, I mean Sin is causing the town members to start behaving like sluts (old and young alike) - which by the way I don't understand is he supposed to be a soul bent on getting revenge or an incubus? - and that's basically all it is.
Sin and Candice, Dice, are supposedly in love. Really? Their first meeting (not the death scene) is so cheesy, so corny and I really got the feeling the Sin could care less. Dice randomly decides she's in love, yes it is quite random, and Sin is like.... Yes sure. Why did Dice fall in love with Sin? I have no idea, from one sentence to the next it was like she had proclaimed Sin her love, with no apparent forethought or even thought what so ever.
And Sin was not a good person, he hurt the descendent of the one who killed his wife, but obviously since 200 + years have past it really had nothing to do with the person. Sin, knowing that Pen is Dice's counsin, took her virginity and made her act like a bimbo. But Dice still loves Sin.... Bleck
This was too flat, too boring and too unbelievable. Had I not received this from the Vine I definitely would have been ticked at buying it. Life is too short to read bad books. Move on.
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