A Magic Dark and Bright by Jenny Adams Perinovic

 

*Thank you NetGalley for providing me a digital copy of this book to review!*

Labeled as a ‘YA Gothic Romance’, this book had such a beautiful blend of horror, romance and history. It was enchanting and mysterious, with a lovely, homey feel to it. Though the overall premise of it wasn’t particularly original, it had so many little, unique aspects to it, that set it apart from other books.

With alluring descriptions and a natural feel to the writing, A Magic Dark and Bright read with such ease. It brought to life the details of the settings and made the main character, Amelia, feel very real. As I first started to read this book, I thought it was in the horror genre because of the great creepiness it had. As the romance and paranormal aspects of this book took over, the creepy undertone never faltered, which I absolutely loved. The combination of the town’s history, with the world’s history allowed you to get a good sense of the ghosts and witches in this story. Along with the history, Amelia’s dreams also gave the main ghost in the story a personality and past.

Amelia was a strong main character, though she did have some flaws. After the death of her brother, she is very unsure about dating and relationships. Unfortunately, as she forms a relationship throughout the book, her insecurities do not seem to go away. Aside from that, she has a strong drive and is a great hero, without actually being the one to discover powers, which I found refreshing.

Her best friend, Leah, was kind of annoying, the stereotypical outgoing friend, always pushing the other to do things. While I wasn’t a huge fan of that, Leah does prove to be a good character throughout the book, and isn’t just cast aside as some lame side character. Charlie, Amelia’s love interest, was also a bit of a stereotypical ‘good boy’ character, but he was very pleasant and enjoyable to read about.

The emotion in this book was so powerful. The relationship was adorable and sweet, and even though I’m not a huge fan of romance, I couldn’t help but love this one. It seemed very genuine and came about at a perfect pace. Along with the love, the negative emotions the character’s felt were also very real. I felt so much anger toward Ben every time the characters encountered him.

There were parts of this book that were quite predictable, like being introduced to the next character that was going to die only pages before their death. Same with the growing suspicion of who the bad guy is. But luckily, there were also some nicely original twists and discoveries that made up for those predictable parts.

Almost everything got explained in the end, but there were some things left completely open. I’m hoping the mystery of Amelia’s brother’s death will be explained in the next book, in relation to the paranormal aspects. Although it didn’t seem like a particularly special book at first, it was a very fun, mysterious read. The ending was stunning and shocking, a complete cliffhanger that MUST be solved in the next book. I can honestly say that I threw my Kindle from the shock of that ending. I cannot wait to see where this story goes.

Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

This book. I wanted to hate it. I should have hated it. But somehow, I didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few things I did indeed hate about this book, one of them being Daemon, the main character’s love interest. However, despite its several flaws and bad relationship, I enjoyed it. Something about it made me want to keep reading. It was an overall fun book, and each time I put it down I looked forward to picking it back up.

I’ll begin with the elements of this book that I did like. The writing, though simple, was very easy and quick to read. It wasn’t anything spectacular, but it was pleasant, nonetheless. The main character, Katy, was likable for the most part. She seemed fairly realistic, someone you could easily relate to and be friends with. There is a tiny bit of character growth, but she mostly remained unchanged.

Katy’s character did have her flaws, however. The most obvious one that is focused on throughout the book, is her overwhelming attraction to Daemon, her alien neighbor. I disliked Daemon so much. He is portrayed as a flawlessly attractive guy with perfect abs and piercing eyes. But there is nothing at all attractive or likable about Daemon. He is a straight up asshole. From his first encounter with Katy, he acts ignorant, arrogant and very mean to Katy. Throughout the book he flip-flops from this terrible jerk to a temporarily caring and kind guy. And Katy gets fooled time and time again. She knows what a jerk he is, and yet her intense sexual attraction for him is too overwhelming to ignore. What I don’t understand is how one can be so physically attracted to someone who is such an ass? It isn’t realistic or plausible. Regardless, their relationship is nothing short of being screwed up. Daemon verbally treats Katy like crap and is mentally abusive to her. He blames her for nearly getting potentially raped and killed. And not to spoil anything, but the end of chapter 26 really pissed me off and showed what a true asshole Daemon is.

Aside from Daemon being a terrible person, Obsidian was a somewhat predictable book. It continuously reminded me of Twilight, in more than one aspect. Dee was a pretty nice character, even though she was clearly just a pawn to the main focus of the book- Daemon and Katy’s relationship.

The alien thing was equally disappointing and enjoyable. I wouldn’t call what Daemon and Dee are aliens, as they were far from any definition of the term I can think of. Instead, they were a completely other type of being that I thought was unique and refreshing.

Although the relationship in this book was awful, and its resemblance to Twilight off-putting, I did enjoy reading Obsidian. The well-written main character made it easy to read and enjoy, despite its many downfalls. I likely won’t pick up the next book in the series, as the ending hints toward it being all about Katy and Daemon’s relationship. I’m not sure what all the hype is about for this series, unfortunately.