Thursday, November 10, 2011

Awake at Dawn by C. C. Hunter



So, technically I’m reading two epic fantasy books right now…One about dragons and one about Beka Cooper. Know what I’m talking about? But, I woke up from a bad dream last night around 1 am, and I have no idea what it was about. All I know is I woke up terrified, shaking, and couldn’t sleep. What’s a girl to do? Apparently, reading fantasy was not the right medicine. I started this book, and before I knew it, my clock said 6am. My eyes were burning from being open so long, but I really pulled my first all-nighter since graduate school with this one. I guess it takes me five hours to read one YA book?
Needless to say this book was the perfect medicine. I loved the first one. And I loved this one (book 2). I was a little confused in the beginning because I thought the last one ended at the end of camp, but apparently I’m wrong. This literally started immediately after book 1 ended, before camp is over, and before camp can become school.
It has a lot of the same questions as before. Kylie in the first book had to deal with a camp full of supernaturals who all can normally read someone’s mind patterns to determine what kind of creature they are: human, vampire, werewolf, fairy, shapeshifter, or witch. And, no on could place Kylie. In the first book she dealt with a best friend with a pregnancy scare, an ex who kept pushing Kylie to do things she didn’t want to, divorcing parents (who think she’s at a camp with troubled teens), the love triangle with the fairy guy and the werewolf guy from her past, and all the crazy attempts someone was making to sabotage the camp she comes to accept she’s a part of.
In this book, not knowing what kind of creature she is, is even more frustrating. She develops a lot more abilities too. Now, she can talk to ghosts, go into people’s dreams and do things there, protect people with super strength, run really fast, drink and like the taste of blood, and some other really cool things I refuse to spoil. The camp sabotage is over and a lot of this book focuses on Kylie trying to figure out her heritage and fixing things with her parents. She also learns her friend from home has cancer. She finally takes the trip to the waterfall, to search for the angels of death. Lucas (werewolf guy from the past) comes back to camp and messes everything up that Kylie started to have with Derek (fairy guy).  This time, there’s a ghost haunting her, telling her that she needs to do something or someone she knows is going to die just like her (the ghost), which apparently involves a lot of blood.
There’s romance for Kylie and both her best friends at camp, awful parents visits, and a lot of growing up and Kylie embracing all that she can be. It ends before I know what she is, and I am still dying to know! Though, it ends with a promise of information in book 3. There’s saving friends, escaping rogue vampires, and a lot of family drama. I loved it.
The one thing that did kind of bother me was: the lack of intelligent guessing/research on Kylie’s part as to what she is. I feel like I have two reasonable guesses for what she is and I can’t believe that the girl wouldn’t guess these things too. Does her not guessing them mean the author will go one of these routes? I don’t know. I just feel like Kylie is a little bit dumb when it comes to this. She’s researching, even calling in the P.I. to find her dead, biological father’s parents. Why doesn’t she use the same tenacity in discovering what she is herself, instead of just whining about it being hard and looking for answers from other people?
Regardless of the whining, which actually was a lot less than it was in the first one, I did read this whole thing in one night. I give it a 9/10. And I can’t wait for book 3 to come out in April.

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