Tasha's Review: Born at Midnight

Born at Midnight (Shadow Falls #1) by C.C. Hunter
Publication Date: March 29, 2011
Genre: YA Paranormal
Pages: 398
Source: Bought

 

Summary

 



One night Kylie Galen finds herself at the wrong party, with the wrong people, and it changes her life forever. Her mother ships her off to Shadow Falls—a camp for troubled teens, and within hours of arriving, it becomes painfully clear that her fellow campers aren’t just “troubled.” Here at Shadow Falls, vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, witches and fairies train side by side—learning to harness their powers, control their magic and live in the normal world.

Kylie’s never felt normal, but surely she doesn’t belong here with a bunch of paranormal freaks either. Or does she? They insist Kylie is one of them, and that she was brought here for a reason. As if life wasn’t complicated enough, enter Derek and Lucas. Derek’s a half-fae who’s determined to be her boyfriend, and Lucas is a smokin’ hot werewolf with whom Kylie shares a secret past. Both Derek and Lucas couldn’t be more different, but they both have a powerful hold on her heart.

Even though Kylie feels deeply uncertain about everything, one thing is becoming painfully clear—Shadow Falls is exactly where she belongs…

 

You know, I felt a whole lot better about this book right after I read it. I was ready to give it a four and tell people to read it. But now that I'm a little more than a month removed from it, I'm singing a different tune.

The more I think about the characters, the less I like them. They feel very clichéd. The love interests, Derek and Lucas, were what you expected. Lucas, the bad boy with a heart, and Derek, the good guy  that would do anything to protect the girl. They weren't anything special. Then there was Kylie, the protagonist. I liked her so much more a month ago. Now, I'm not even sure I like her. She was just really judgmental and self-centered. She was hard to sympathize with. I really don't know why I liked her in the first place. The only characters I can truly say I liked are her roommates, Miranda and Della, and the camp leader, Holiday. They helped make the book feel a bit more grounded.

And the plot was full of clichés, but I can look past most of them. I could pretty much guess most of the plot points. It did do one or two things that I didn't call, but those were just a few exceptions. Though I didn't feel the plot and story was anything unique, I do think the world the book is set in could be something really interesting and it does make me curious about the next book.

Overall, I thought the book was just okay. I think it had a lot more potential that it didn't live up to. I have hopes for the second book and I will read the sequel. (In the interest of full disclosure, I already have the second one because I bought one of those 2 books in 1 deals.) I don't know if I would recommend the reading it, but I do say give it shot. Check back with me on that after I read the next one.

.5