Born at Midnight (Shadow Falls, #1)

by C C Hunter

[Raven]

Kylie’s life is falling apart. Her boyfriend dumped her because she wouldn’t put out, her grandmother died, she is having night terrors, she is being stalked by a guy no one else can see that landed her with a shrink, and her parents are getting divorced. In a fit of rebellion, she goes to a party, which of course gets busted by the cops, landing her in jail. Despite the fact that she wasn’t drinking or doing drugs like many of the other kids, Kylie’s mother is furious and decides that she will spend her summer away at Shadow Falls, a camp for “troubled teens”. The kids aren’t “troubled”, just “supernatural”, and they swear that Kylie is one of them, they just don’t know what kind. She has never really fit in, but does she really fit in with a bunch of fae, werewolves, vampires, witches and elves? She sincerely doubts it! But the longer she spends with them, the more it becomes clear that they just might be right. Now if only she could figure out what kind of supernatural she really is.
The plot is annoyingly simple. It actually feels like it drags. You go through so much of the book and then still, nothing has happened and very little is building up for the climax. I have a rule about not rating a book for two hours after I read it, just to avoid an incorrect rating, a rule that was a saving grace for this book. At the immediate end, this would’ve been a firm two stars book. During the digestion process, I see why I really liked it.

The plot is an agonizingly slow build up. When you take the step back and look at it though, it’s actually incredibly smart. You are slowly building on things. You can tell right away that you will end up tired of Kylie before the series is completed though. Finding out what she is is going to drag and drag and drag. That may or may not be a bad thing. Stretching it out can either kill it for the reader, or fill the anticipation to busting. The climax being small is helpful also, in that it helps connect you to the camp. The one thing I didn’t like was the prose. Unlike most of the stories I fall in love with, I didn’t feel sucked in. I felt like I was watching it happen instead of living through it. Usually, I can smell the trees and feel the wind. Instead, I felt like I was watching reality television, with just as much drama.

The character are the real winners. Kylie isn’t brilliant. I actually dislike her as the main character. She is hypocritical, and annoying confused, and her emotions are all over the place. There were enough times when I felt like she was bordering Mary Sue boredom in her character development. Sure, she had flaws, but they were boring. She was boring. She was almost annoying more often than not, and I found myself wishing we were seeing someone else, anyone else, telling the story. Her roommates are amazing and I loved them right away. Sadly, they felt more developed than Kylie. I know Kylie is lost and finding out what she is, but that doesn’t justify making her annoying in the process. The love square was useless and annoying. Trey is the ex who wants her back, Lucas is the werewolf who she used to know and represents nothing but passion and danger, and Derek is the sweet half-fae who just wants to love her. Out of them, I liked Derek the best, but even then, I felt like none of them were rememberable enough to even deal with. Not to mention that they made Kylie talk about her breasts way way too often. I am all for discovering your sexual side, but you can get really bored of hearing about a girl’s boobs. Unless you’re a guy I suppose. I think it goes back to how I wasn’t sucked in. If I had been, my boobs would’ve tingled when hers did, but instead I just read about it. It all fell flat on the page.

Despite feeling disconnected to the story, I did enjoy it very much. I laughed, I cried, I fell in love with a few of the characters, rooted for others. Time will tell how the series continues, but for now I like it very much.

Read this and other reviews at my blog.