The secrets of the moon follows Marjorie, a college student growing up in a hick town in the USA, who suddenly finds herself thrust into a world of werewolves and danger.
The opening of this book is amazing, it takes the standard YA heroine and drops her on her head. We have a main character responsible for a drunken car crash and paralysation of a friend in the first few pages. There is also a glimpse of the werewolves that will mean so much later. The opening is excellent and I thoroughly expected to enjoy the rest of the book.
Unfortunately the opening is the only truly original piece of this pie. Marjorie is now no longer a party girl, but someone worn down by her parent's financial worries and cares and she doesn't date anymore. We then get the handsome, sparkly (this is an intentional reference) new boy, who's mysterious and doesn't seem to like her. He takes her out, then ignores her. She meets his family, who are exceptionally nice, oh and she's being followed.
The main problem with this book is that it reads like a fanfic version of Twilight, only with werewolves. Bits of the book are excellent, the main character is proactive and not brainless but unfortunately any character development she gets is ruined by the plot's following of Twilight.
Unfortunately this plot is unerringly similar and not in a 'well there are only so many plots way'. This book has whole chunks of text which could have been ripped from Twilight or New Moon and re-written for werewolves. Not all of it, but enough that it pulls me out of the text.
This book could have stood alone without that. It had a brilliant setup, a great main character and the potential for a bit of mystery solving, but it unfortunately went for Fanfic route.
I would urge the author to take her text and re-edit. There is a great book in here, it just needs to lose the fanfic trappings and stand firmly on it's own.
***
The opening of this book is amazing, it takes the standard YA heroine and drops her on her head. We have a main character responsible for a drunken car crash and paralysation of a friend in the first few pages. There is also a glimpse of the werewolves that will mean so much later. The opening is excellent and I thoroughly expected to enjoy the rest of the book.
Unfortunately the opening is the only truly original piece of this pie. Marjorie is now no longer a party girl, but someone worn down by her parent's financial worries and cares and she doesn't date anymore. We then get the handsome, sparkly (this is an intentional reference) new boy, who's mysterious and doesn't seem to like her. He takes her out, then ignores her. She meets his family, who are exceptionally nice, oh and she's being followed.
The main problem with this book is that it reads like a fanfic version of Twilight, only with werewolves. Bits of the book are excellent, the main character is proactive and not brainless but unfortunately any character development she gets is ruined by the plot's following of Twilight.
Unfortunately this plot is unerringly similar and not in a 'well there are only so many plots way'. This book has whole chunks of text which could have been ripped from Twilight or New Moon and re-written for werewolves. Not all of it, but enough that it pulls me out of the text.
This book could have stood alone without that. It had a brilliant setup, a great main character and the potential for a bit of mystery solving, but it unfortunately went for Fanfic route.
I would urge the author to take her text and re-edit. There is a great book in here, it just needs to lose the fanfic trappings and stand firmly on it's own.
***
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