Thursday, June 28, 2012

Review: Turned by Morgan Rice

In TURNED (Book #1 of the Vampire Journals series), 18 year old Caitlin Paine finds herself uprooted from her nice suburb and forced to attend a dangerous New York City high school when her Mom moves again. The one ray of light in her new surroundings is Jonah, a new classmate who takes an instant liking to her.

But before their romance can blossom, Caitlin suddenly finds herself changing. She is overcome by a superhuman strength, a sensitivity to light, a desire to feed--by feelings she does not understand. She seeks answers to what’s happening to her, and her cravings lead her to the wrong place at the wrong time. Her eyes are opened to a hidden world, right beneath her feet, thriving underground in New York City. She finds herself caught between two dangerous covens, right in the middle of a vampire war.

It is at this moment that Caitlin meets Caleb, a mysterious and powerful vampire who rescues her from the dark forces. He needs her to help lead him to the legendary lost artifact. And she needs him for answers, and for protection. Together, they will need to answer one crucial question: who was her real father?

But Caitlin finds herself caught between two men as something else arises between them: a forbidden love. A love between the races that will risk both of their lives, and will force them to decide whether to risk it all for each other…



This book was free in the Kindle Lending Library, was really short and was rating somewhat highly. To be honest, I enjoyed it for what it was and thought it was lovely, but I almost feel like the above description contains more story development than the actual book. 


Torn between two men? I mean, I guess, if the last dude comes onto the scene towards the end and she's suddenly Bill-from-True-Blood-type-glamoured by him and Jonah looks like Barack Obama (no seriously, that's how he's described). 
  • Originality: 2 - this is Twilight crossed with the fact the main character is already turning into a vampire and may be a vampire messiah. Other than that, she's a slightly tougher version of Miss Bella Swan.
  • Absurdity: 9 - a few things: 1) describing the love interest as a younger Barack Obama. This elicited endless giggles from yours truly, but also made me think about if Michelle was really okay with Caitlin getting all personal with her man. 2) Caitlin supposedly lives around 145th street on the west side and paints it as this lawless, horrific neighborhood. This made me laugh, because, well, it's not. I live 30 blocks from there, so I think I have some street cred on this. 3) Caitlin ends up killing someone in this and it's just redonk. I was laughing at this point in the book, too. Apparently, I snickered my way through this one.
  • Level of Paranormal Romance: 5 - to be honest, the only romance factor comes in when she meets Caleb and after, I kid you not, 3 hours, she's "in love" with him. As much as I would be super pumped to know I'd met The One after 180 minutes, I'm just not really buying what Ms. Price is selling. 
  • Level of Harry Potterness: 3? Not the worst thing I've ever read, but not the best by a long shot!

Update: I tried to read Loved the second book in The Vampire Journal series and failed spectacularly. I just couldn't deal with Caitlin and Caleb - it seemed like the writing just gave up where it was slightly intriguing in the first book. Not to mention, I really couldn't deal with the eyebrow sitch on this cover and how each book seems to have a different Caitlin on the cover. Never underestimate the importance of a (consistently) bad cover! Geesh, has this blog taught these publishers nothing?! :)

4 comments:

  1. This is me being bad at tech but can I follow y'all without friend connect?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OH MAN I am bad at tech too! I have no idea. I checked, but apparently friend connect is no longer a thing blogger supports?

      Delete
  2. HAHAHA! I loved this post! I was wondering about the Morgan Rice novels, but was worried about how cheesy it might be. May pass on this altogether.

    Am following you now.

    Would love you to check out my blog, Ensconced in YA
    http://cahreviews.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete

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