Welcome
back to the wonderful world of YA paranormal romance—the genre that answers the
question “What if supernatural creatures walked among us?” with “They’d be
eighteen, drop-dead gorgeous, and totally willing to pork the outcast girl who’s
always thought she was ‘different’.” This week’s book, Dahlia, is the first in the Blood Crave Series, by author Christina
Channelle (who has an absolutely wonderful name). While Dahlia introduces a compelling mystery and quite a few interesting
characters, its focus on internal monologue and unoriginal romance left me
feeling less than amazed.
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| Yet another professional cover! Wonderful! |
Dahlia, the
title character, has always known she’s different. She’s grown up in foster
homes and orphanages, and only now has found some stability in the home of the
Cahill family. Despite being annoyed by the antics of her foster brother, Sam,
Dahlia knows he’s her first real friend in years. Their cute, brother-sister
interaction is one of my favorite parts of the book. Dahlia’s just about to
start at Sam’s high school—but something’s up. Two mysterious men are living in
the forest and following her around. Dahlia thinks back to walking into rooms
covered in blood as a child. It creates a creepy, mysterious vibe that
permeates the start of the book.
I got a
little wary when we approached Dahlia’s first day at school—it seems every YA
book requires a scene where the character goes to a new school and describes
every single class, teacher, and student. Thankfully, Channelle doesn’t do
this. There is the obligatory lunchroom scene where she meets the obligatory
Group of Friends, but that turns out to be necessary to the story. Best of all,
she doesn’t describe how every clique sits at its own table.
The story
runs into a few pacing problems in the middle. There’s a lot of internal
monologue—Dahlia thinking to herself. It can get pretty repetitive, what with
her telling herself over and over that what’s happening to her shouldn’t be
possible, and that she feels like she’s different than everyone else, and that she
hungers for blood. Saying something ten times does not make the emotion you’re
trying to convey ten times as strong.
There also
isn’t a strong sense of direction. In one of my favorite YA paranormal
romances, City of Bones, the heroine
journeys to the aforementioned City to meet a group of seers who find the name
Magnus Bane imprinted on her subconscious. Bane turns out to be a notorious
warlock, so the heroine and her friends have to crash a party he’s throwing to
interrogate him. While leaving the party, one of her friends is abducted by
vampires, so heroine + love interest have to go rescue him . . . One event causes another distinct event. This
events allow the characters to explore the world while simultaneously
developing the plot and deepening the sense of danger.
Dahlia
may learn secrets about herself and fall in love, but we never get the feeling
the plot is going somewhere. She goes to school and to parties, but these
events only serve as backdrops. As much as I liked her character at the
beginning, she lacks a concrete goal. The romance also didn’t really grab
me—there wasn’t much to differentiate it from any of the hundreds of other
romances I’ve read about. Despite Dahlia thinking at one point that ‘what she
and [love interest] had was complicated’, it actually isn’t that complicated.
He’s got a stereotypical godlike physique and special green eyes. She’s
attracted to him even when he’s practically mugging her in a park. He’s got big
secrets he’s hiding from her. At some point, these secrets make Dahlia angry,
which happens in every romantic story written ever.
The
strengths of Dahlia lie primarily in
the supporting characters. Sam, Dahlia’s goofy-yet-supportive foster brother
manages to be genuinely pleasant while at the same time having a bit of an edge
as he tries to encourage Dahlia to break out of her shell. And the mysterious
Ava kept me reading just to find out what her motives were. As a first novel,
it’s honestly not bad. Channelle has a talent for creating interesting characters.
If the plot of future novels can build a little more tension, she might be a
writer to watch.
Highs:
Establishing characters. I found it pretty easy to sympathize with Dahlia from
the start. Creepiness. The mentions of her walking into a room covered in blood
sent shivers up my spine. The climax. It’s clear cut and feels very dangerous.
Lows: The
slow beginning. It takes ten paragraphs to fit in the first three lines of
dialogue. The magic scheme. I found it kind of hard to take seriously. There’s
only so many supernatural things you can mix together and this story reeks of
Our Vampires Are Different. When the magical history of the universe is
explained, we get it once without character names and directly afterwards with
the character names added. One of those could be cut.
My rating?
For YA paranormal romance, four stars. For a novel, three.
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