The Summoning

This is a book review for the book The Summoning, by Kelley Armstrong. I really finished this book the day before Halloween (the 30th), but I didn't really have enough time to write a review for it then, so I just put it off till today. Hell, I didn't even get to start a new book when I was done with the last one. But I'll get to start a new one today, which will be fun. So anyway, here we go...

Warning: spoiler alert!

So the story starts off with a girl named Chloe Saunders. She is just a little girl in the beginning, and she sees people in her basement, and they scare her. Her mom said that she wouldn't have to go in the basement anymore, but when she hears her babysitter calling her into the basement, she knows she has to go. So she reluctantly goes into the basement to find her babysitter, only to find out that it was not her babysitter who was calling her down there. It was an evil spirit that she is terrified of. The story trails off into the next chapter here, and she's fifteen, in her bed, and that had all been a nightmare. She shakes it off and goes to school, only things are different, weird. On the way to school she sees a man go in the middle of the street, only the man who was driving her to school didn't see anything. When she gets to school, she thinks this is just another day, but is very surprised when she finally and unexpectedly hits puberty (she starts her period, if you must know). While she's in the bathroom, she hears things: a girl crying in the next stall. But there is no one there. When she exits the bathroom, a man in a custodian's uniform calls her to him. But his face is all wrong, burned looking and gruesome. The man chases her around the school, shouting that he just wants to talk, but she's scared and keeps running, even when she hears a teacher yelling at her to stop. She finds herself at a dead end, with nowhere else to go. She opens a window, but realizes that she is too high up to jump out. Just then the principal catches up to her and sees her by the window. He thinks she is going to jump, and a teacher decides to tackle her down, so she can't jump. She squirms and lashes out at the teacher, because the man with the burnt face is there, in her face, yelling that he just wants to talk, and the teacher holds her down until an ambulance arrives and sedates her. She wakes up in the hospital, where her aunt is waiting for her to wake. Her mother died when she was little, so her aunt was like a mother to her. Her aunt proceeds to tell her that the school has ordered her to get help, and that she will be staying at Lyle House, a group home for troubled teens, for two weeks. Once there, the Psychiatrist who is a evaluating her decides that she is Schizophrenic, and needs to take medication to treat it. But weird things are happening at Lyle House: her roommate thinks she has a poltergeist, and when Chloe tries to tell her that she can't really see ghosts (Liz wanted her to get rid of her poltergeist for her), she gets angry and things start falling and being thrown all around her, without Liz even moving a muscle. Liz gets "transferred" that night, because the nurse in the home caught her "throwing" things. But her roommate Liz isn't the only weird thing going on in Lyle House: there are two brothers who aren't blood related, one was there because of a violent incident in which he protected his brother, and the other didn't even have a file, was only there to be with his brother. There was a girl named Tori who had dangerous mood-swings and tries to kill Chloe, and also a girl named Rae who claimed the ability to burn people with her bare hands. Chloe at first is convinced that she is Schizophrenic, but Derek (the brother with the violent background) lets her in on the supernatural world, and she learns that she is a Necromancer, someone who can communicate with, and raise the dead. Simon (the other brother) wants to run away to find his missing father, but doesn't want to leave his brother Derek alone, and Chloe convinces him that she and Rae would run away with him, and Derek would join them later if he were to be in danger, so they scout-out a plan to escape. But something is wrong with Derek: he wasn't there when the big escape arrives. So Chloe instructs Simon and Rae to go without her, and that she would meet up with them once she finds Derek and makes sure he's alright. But when she finds him, he's squirming on the ground and changing in ways she thought not possible. He is a werewolf. They finally make their escape, but things get even weirder: the nurses from Lyle House are after them, and shooting at them with tranquilizer guns. Chloe from then-on-out is separated from the brothers, betrayed by someone she loved, and captured by the strange people of Lyle House, and has to call the help of a friend she hoped she was wrong about: her old roommate Liz, who is dead. The story ends there, the perfect cliff-hanger. What I want to know, is how did Liz die exactly? Or better-yet, why was she killed? What happened to Derek and Simon? What is Tori's supernatural "power"? Is Rae really supernatural at all? Why were the people of Lyle House collecting supernatural kids and how were they getting away with it? And most importantly, how was Chloe going to escape and find her new friends? Guess I'll just have to wait till I can get my hands on the second book, The Awakening...
This book is good for young-adults and up, and a pretty good scary-story. I can't really compare this book to anything I've read so far, for it is a pretty unique read. I give this book five stars for the quality of writing, five for the originality of the story-line, and two for the number of days it took me to read it. Overall it was a four star read.
Blog ya later, Miss Eccentric.

Shiver

I just finished the book I was reading last night, and I got to thinking: what if I started to write book reviews whenever I finish a new book? You see, I've been having a little trouble thinking of new subjects to blog about lately, so this can help solve that problem, plus it will be fun to write a little about books that I read, since that is such a big part of my life, and one of my favorite pass-times (reading, that is). So this is a small book review of the book I finished last night, called "Shiver", by Maggie Stiefvater.

Warning: spoiler-alert!

The book "Shiver" is essentially a love story. It's about two young people who fall in love, and then have to fight to keep hold of that love. The thing about Maggie Stiefvater is that her writing is quite unique in a sense. She switches back and forth through the two main character's point-of-views, giving us a look into both of their minds throughout the story. It's quite interesting, really. The story starts out with background on how the two main characters, Grace and Sam, initially met, seeing it through mostly Graces eyes at first. Grace was attacked by wolves when she was a little girl, and Sam (a wolf), first saw her then. While the other wolves in his pack were biting her, he watched, infatuated by this young girl who neither squirmed nor screamed as the wolves bit at her, tearing her skin. And likewise, Grace was infatuated by this beautiful wolf with bright yellow eyes who stayed by the sidelines. Needless to say, Sam couldn't just watch, so he decided to save her. How he did this, was because he was not just any wolf: he was a werewolf. So he changed into his human form and carried her to safety. Years later (our characters are now in their late teens), both Sam and Grace are practically obsessed with each other. Although not in the way you might think. Sam is a wolf during winter, and can only change to his human form when it's hot out, meaning in the summer, so he sits and watches at the edge of the woods, overlooking Grace's home, and Grace herself goes outside every day just to watch him, for she doesn't yet know what exactly he is. She just thinks he is a mere wolf, whom she can not get her mind off. One fateful night, hunters go through her wolve's woods, and she simply can't let her yellow eyed wolf get hurt. So she goes into the woods and stops the hunters, although she is too late: she heard a gunshot and she knew in her heart that it was her wolf that had gotten shot. She gets to her house and finds something she never thought possible: a naked man on her back porch, with a gunshot wound on his neck, and bright yellow eyes. She saves him, and after that, of course he tells her everything (at least everything she didn't figure out herself), and they fall in love. Only there is one problem, that being that the wolf inside Sam is trying to take him over. Werewolves in this story change in the winter, and change back in the summer, but the real problem here is not that it's almost winter, but that after a certain amount of time (twenty or so years for most werewolves, but significantly less for Sam), every werewolf just stops changing back to human form altogether, permanently stuck in their wolf forms until they die, even in the heat. And this is Sam's last year as human. Winter is fast coming, the cold penetrating everything, gnawing at Sam and reminding him that he had hardly any (surly not enough) time left with his precious Grace. Now they both have to fight everyday just to keep Sam human, not letting him outside unless Grace has heated the car before he leaves the house. But the cold is too much, and he knows he can't last, even with the heater in Graces car and the heater in her home, where he has been staying since she saved him. And when a newly changing young werewolf (constantly changing from human to wolf unstably, no matter the weather) decides Grace has a cure for this "condition" (she never changed after she was bitten as a child), he takes it to the extreme and locks Sam away somewhere too cold for his human body to handle. Now Grace has to rush to save him, to warm him up before he changes for good, because if he does, she knows he won't be able to change back again, no matter how hot she gets him. But when she saves him, she happens to accidentally crash her car, braking the windshield and letting in the cold, losing her love forever to the majestic wolf that is his other half. But she thinks she has found a cure, and now has to figure a way out to administer it into him without killing him. But that's not all, she must also figure out a way to change him back, or the cure will do nothing but make the wolf sick, and kill him. Now, I don't think I want to tell you anything more, just so you have to read it yourself to get the ending. Also, keep in mind that this is not a short story of the book, and I have only told you the biggest details to the story, and none of the personal ones. Therefore you must read the book to really get the story, and the personalities of the main characters. I enjoyed this book immensely, and although she tied it up nicely at the end, I hope that Maggie Stiefvater decides to write a second book some day, though I don't know how she would keep it going. I very much recommend this book to readers teen and up, and can compare it to something like "Need", by Carrie Jones (another blog, for another time), because it's an epic love story with the supernatural mixed in, creating the perfect blend of young love and adventure. I must warn you though, there is one spot in the book (a little more than half way through) that is definitely for adult eyes only, if you catch my drift. Although it's not as bad as some of the "adult" related parts I've seen in other books, and it faded at the perfect time, not giving any of the dirty little details. It was tastefully written, and I have even suggested to my own mom that she would like it. I give this book five stars for the quality of writing, five for the originality of the story line, and three for the speed in which I read it. Overall a four star read.
Blog ya later, Miss Eccentric.