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Tuesday, June 5, 2012

BBReview: "Darkride Chronicles 1: Darkride" By Laura Bradley Rede

Genre: Young Adult -Paranormal/Romance
Publishing Date: December 9th, 2011
Page Count: 288
Source: Sent to me by the author
Format: E-Book

Description from Goodreads.com:
Ander McNair used to be the favorite son of a great monster-hunting family - until he was bitten by a werewolf and the hunter became the hunted. Now anything that makes his pulse race, even a kiss from his girlfriend Cicely, is enough to turn him into a monster. When he finally gets a chance to earn his cure by killing a vampire princes, he finds he has to choose between his own past and the future of the girl he loves. Can a guy who's not even human learn what it means to be a man?

Luke Marianez used to be an immortal vampire prince - until the witch he loved betrayed him and cursed him with the ability to die. Now he lives in the world of vampire blood bars, where the waitresses are the drinks, and dreams about killing the last of the witch's line to he can live forever. But revenge doesn't just mean breaking the curse. He wants to break the girl's heart, too. Can Luke seduce Cicely without falling in love himself?

Cicely Watson doesn't believe in werewolves or vampires. She's not even sure she believes in true love. But she's about to discover what every werewold knows:

People change.

Review:
Going into this i really had no idea what was going to happen at all in Darkride. All i knew was there was a lot of paranormals and i liked it! I almost feel like this book morphed half way through and turned into something even better. The description is pretty specific and lets you in on what you should expect to happen, but what is described up there is not at all the only parts that will happen. I almost thought i was reading a new book at one point, because reading the description for Darkride you expect a typical love triangle book with paranormals and that there will be a hero in the end and someone might die and that overall there will be emotions tested and an adventure to go on, well that isn't all that happens. Darkride is exactly like what it is titled after, a darkride. You know, one of those rides where you're on a conveyor belt and its dark and you go through tunnels not knowing what will happen. Sometimes there are the love tunnel ones, and other times there are the haunted ones with scary things that will pop out at you. Well, Darkride is exactly like those; you never know what will happen next. Each twist and turn through the tunnels of the book you don't know what to expect and just keep moving along till the end, because thats all you can do. lol

I was very surprised with this book. I definitely expected to really like it, but i didn't expect it to be this great and have way more in store than your typical novel with the same themes. I loved all of the characters that were introduced and overall liked all the events that happened. I loved, loved, LOVED the family atmosphere during this novel. There was a lot of love and support from the parent/parents of Cicely and Ander. And when i say Ander i definitely do not mean his terrible birth parents. I really like it when a book has strong family backgrounds with great morals and support. It just makes the book feel better overall. Laura Bradley Rede is very, very good at describing things so it was very easy to picture everything that was going on and easy to get a mental picture of the different scenes and location. One scene takes place at The Mall of America, and even though i personally have never been there i feel like i have a pretty accurate picture in my head of what it looks like, and when i finally do get to go there i will definitely ride the darkride (if they really have one) and think of this novel the whole time.

The only reason that i am not giving this 5 stars is because i felt like something was just missing to give it that extra sizzle. I honestly don't know if it was that something was missing or if it was just Luke. You know i have a small tiff with love triangles and if things work out the way i want them to then all is forgiven, but when they keep dragging on that they love both guys i start to get angry lol. I can imagine that if Luke just stayed the bad guy the whole time and there was never a possibility of him maybe having feelings for Cicely and Cicely never got a little crush on him then it would probably be a five star, but 4.75 is close enough lol.

Overall:
I loved this novel. It was so mysterious and hard to figure out what was going to happen next. There is no way that you will be able to guess what will happen next, especially if you read the first few chapters and then try and guess the ending. A lot of novels are easy to guess after a few chapters what will happen, but not with Darkride. The characters will all formed amazingly and i fell in love with all of Ander and Cicely's friends. I loved the amazing families that supported and loved both of them as well. It was very easy to visualize everything going on mentally, thanks to Laura's amazing descriptive talents, and i cannot wait to see what will happen next!

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 4.75/5

*The image and description are from Goodreads.com. Both are linked to the Goodreads site. This book was sent to me by the author for an honest review*