Review: My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent

My Soul to Take (Soul Screamers, #1) by Rachel Vincent

Release Date: August 1, 2009

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Author Information: Website / Blog / Twitter / Facebook

Genre: Paranormal

Available Formats: Paperback and eBook
My Shelf: Want to Buy

Other Books in Series: My Soul to Lose (#0.5)
Buy the Book: Amazon / Barnes and Noble / Books-A-Million

She doesn't see dead people. She senses when someone near her is about to die. And when that happens, a force beyond her control compels her to scream bloody murder. Literally.

Kaylee just wants to enjoy having caught the attention of the hottest guy in school. But a normal date is hard to come by when Nash seems to know more about her need to scream than she does. And when classmates start dropping dead for no apparent reason, only Kaylee knows who'll be next.

Review:

I LOVED this book. To be honest, I am actually pleasantly surprised by how much I loved it. Based on the synopsis, I was expecting something about a girl hung up on the “hottest guy in school,” with some awkward standard paranormal elements added in to make a typical YA paranormal+romance story concoction.  However, this book had none of that, for which I am very grateful. My Soul to Take is refreshingly original, beautifully written, and something you should not miss out on.

My favorite thing about this book was the paranormal/mythology components present. This is my first time reading a book about banshees, and it proved to be a very enlightening and entertaining read. I liked learning the mythology behind banshees (and I also like how there are male banshees), and it is nice to have some deviation from the typical vampire/werewolf/faerie/[insert any other common fantastical being here] stories found in abundance nowadays. The characters were well-crafted, and for what feels like the first time in a long time, none of them annoyed me. Kaylee is definitely one of the better female leads out there, and she is smart and quick on her feet. I am partially in love with Tod and his snarky demeanor, and I hope we get to see more of him in the next book. Nash was a little too one-dimensional for my tastes, but I did not mind him so much. The romance between Nash and Kaylee suffers from insta-love, and it was my least favorite part of the book. I am actually hoping for something to happen between Tod and Kaylee myself, since Tod actually has some (interesting) depth to him and I loved the interactions between the two of them. However, this book does not focus on the romance that much, so Kaylee and Nash’s relationship was bearable. Maybe I am just over the whole ‘popular playboy who falls for the unnoticed one’ dynamic, but nonetheless, I am hoping something to develop between Kaylee and Tod. *crosses fingers* Maybe I should just be happy with what I get and be appreciative of the fact that there is no love triangle. A bad romance trumps a love triangle any day.

     Not that kind of bad romance...

This book has become one of my new guilty pleasures. I am almost embarrassed to admit how much I am looking forward to reading the second book! My Soul to Take was SO GOOD, and if the next book, My Soul to Save, is even half as good as this one, then I am sure I will love it. This story is imaginative and rather unprecedented, and I cannot wait for more. Here’s to finding a new series to obsess over!

The Greatest Escape!