Review: Nighshade (Nightshade #1)

Nightshade by Andrea Cremer

Calla is a werewolf or well she prefers Guardian. She saves someone by feeding him some of her blood (surprise! werewolf blood has healing properties). This is the first event in a series seemingly designed to bring Calla's carefully organized life down in shambles. She's supposed to marry Ren, but now there is a Shay. What you expect happens.

So every blogger seems to have reviewed this book. The consensus seems to be that it's full of awesome, but quite honestly I thought it was awful. It gets part of a star because the cover is so pretty.

Where do I start? The exchanges between Calla and Shay are so incredibly contrived. "Hi! I just met you and telling you things is going to get me killed but let me pour out EVERYTHING about what I am and how my society functions anyway." This happens at least twice which really detracts from the rest of the story in general. The author really should have found a better way to give the reader that information without resorting to such unnatural dialogue.

Calla as a whole comes across as ambivalent. She doesn't have much of an opinion on what is going on besides that both Ren and Shay are incredibly attractive and fill her with longing (well, she does hate skirts and frills). The earth shattering revelation that her masters are lying to her doesn't seem to have much impact. Only when Shay is endangered, does she have a reaction.

So... I didn't like this book, and I can't recommend it.

Star Rating: 0.5/5.0

For an explanation of the Star Rating go here.