Friday, June 17, 2011

Darkness Becomes Her by Kelly Keaton

What It's About:
Ari can’t help feeling lost and alone. With teal eyes and freakish silver hair that can’t be changed or destroyed, Ari has always stood out. And after growing up in foster care, she longs for some understanding of where she came from and who she is. — Her search for answers uncovers just one message from her long dead mother: Run. Ari can sense that someone, or something, is getting closer than they should. But it’s impossible to protect herself when she doesn’t know what she’s running from or why she is being pursued.

She knows only one thing: she must return to her birthplace of New 2, the lush rebuilt city of New Orleans. Upon arriving, she discovers that New 2 is very... different. Here, Ari is seemingly normal. But every creature she encounters, no matter how deadly or horrifying, is afraid of her.

Ari won’t stop until she knows why. But some truths are too haunting, too terrifying, to ever be revealed.

  
What I Think About:
The Characters....
Ari--A young teenage girl who is allowed to wander off in the family car by her foster parents to search for the answers to her birth. Granted the foster parents are described as the best she ever had who taught her love in addition to the tricks of the bail bonds trade but I found it a bit hard to accept that any parent (foster or birth) wouldn't want to go with and help out with the search. Anyway, Ari is an interesting character (at least the mystery of her birth and heritage are) but I found her abrasive, swore too much and emotionally all over the place.
Sebastian--Equally young but a leader to a band of misfit kids in New 2. Prickly personality that I never understood why Ari was interested in him other than he was attractive. Quite mysterious even after his heritage was revealed.
The Rest of the Cast--I enjoyed a couple of the kids quite a bit (I mentally referred to them as Lost Boys even though several were girls). The head of one of the Nine Families of New 2, Josephine, was also interesting. Self serving she wants to use Ari in the long run against New 2's biggest enemy...which is Ari's enemy incidentally.
The Setting:
A Dystopian setting in the not so distant future (approx 2025) mostly taking place in the city of New 2 which is a rebuilt New Orleans after massive hurricanes wiped out the city around 2015. I found some of the descriptions of the city the best part of the book. The author did a great job of describing the destruction and the rebuilt Garden District after the storms. 
The Overall Storyline:
I thought the story drug in parts but the Mythological theme was so interesting that I was able to ignore some of those slow parts just to get to the interesting stuff again. It did seem to take quite a bit of time to get to the meat of the story. I kind of expected that as Ari walked around New 2 people would shy away or cross themselves (at least this is what I expected based on the description) but not so much.

What I Didn't Like:
Other than the lulls in the storyline I didn't like the assassins that were sent after Ari. Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate them as characters I just hated what the author named the group of assassins. The author not only used a word that I didn't know how to pronounce she used foreign letters to spell it out. I think it was Greek. I don't speak Greek. It annoyed me.

What I Liked:
Not your typical vampire/werewolf paranormal. The Mythological setting and other world creatures made this Paranormal YA not your Ho-Hum same ol' same ol'.

Overall 3.5 Stars.

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