Friday, April 30, 2010

Token of Darkness by Amelia Atwater Rhodes


"Cooper Blake has everything going for him—until he wakes from a car accident with his football career in ruins and a mysterious, attractive girl by his side. Cooper doesn’t know how Samantha got there or why he can see her; all he knows is that she’s a ghost, and the shadows that surround her seem intent on destroying her.

No one from Cooper’s old life would understand what he can barely grasp himself. . . . But Delilah, the captain of the cheerleading squad, has secrets of her own, like her ability to see beyond the physical world, and her tangled history with Brent, a loner from a neighboring school who can hear strangers’ most intimate thoughts. Delilah and Brent know that Cooper is in more trouble than he realizes, and that Samantha may not be as innocent as she has led Cooper to believe. But the only way to figure out where Samantha came from will put them all in more danger than they ever dreamed possible."
-Goodreads.com

Overall: 2/5

It seriously pains me to write this review, mostly because I just don't like giving bad reviews, but also because I'm such a fan of Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. I've loved all her stories, partcularly Hawk Song and Persistence of Memory, and had high expectations for this one as well.

Unfortunately, I was sadly diasappointed. The first thing about this one in particular was that it was told with a male MC. There's nothing wrong with this, I just don't connect as well to those stories. Never have. But I've read other books by Rhodes told from a male POV and haven't had too much of a problem with it. With this one, it was more than that. Something about the characters made it nearly impossible to feel for them, to form any sort of bond or sense of comaraderie.

And the story itself wasn't even all that engaging. It seemed almost as if Rhodes was sick of her own story and played it out as quickly as she could just to be done with it.

Sure, there were bits of humorous dialogue and a couple unexpected plot twists, but not quite enough to make this one worth while in my opinion. The only real reason that I continued this story through to the end was... loyalty, I guess. And a genuine hope that it would surely get better. And it did, towards the end. If I hadn't finished reading it, I probably would have given this one a single star.

Characters: 2/5
Plot: 3/5
Ending: 2/5
Cover: 4/5
Happy Factor: 2/5

Other books by Amerlia Atwater-Rhodes: Hawk Song, Demon in my View, Shattered Mirror, Persistence of Memory

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