Nightshade

Review

Okay, first things first: the overall book look. I love the roughly cut, old school pages that they gave his book. That’s a literary bonus for me that sets me up right from the start. However, I do not like the cover. I am not a purple girl, and stunning models on book covers don’t do much for me except make me think that this is a girly whirl book that I will not enjoy. According to Calla herself, she is not a girly girl either, so why she’s done up with super trendy heavy eye makeup on the cover is beyond me. Plus, the damn thing sparkles. Now, what do you think of when you hear the words ‘sparkle’ and ‘paranormal book’? Yeah, ‘nuff said. Personally, I think the cover design folks could have done better.

And then show more there’s the tagline. Prepare yourselves. Deep breath. Go ahead, take another. You’ll need it.

"She can control her pack, but not her heart."

Cliché. Gag. Upchuck. Boooooo-ring! C’mon, publishers: we deserve better. Even though I don’t like the cover, it could have stood alone without the tagline. Someone needs to start channeling his/her inner Don Draper, stat.

Now, here’s the good news: Andrea Cremer’s writing more than makes up the marketing and design cover sins.

In this book, wolves are known as Guardians. There are two packs of Guardians in Nightshade: the Nightshades and the Banes. Calla is the alpha of the young Nightshades, and Ren Laroche is the alpha of the young Banes. Their bosses/masters are known as Keepers, and they have ‘matched’ Calla and Ren to be mated and form a new pack with their respective young pack mates. Yep, you read that right. Calla is heading into an arranged marriage right from the get go, and on her eighteenth birthday, too. Calla seems to have mixed feelings about it, but her sense of loyalty and duty stays her course. However, those mixed feelings intensify quite a bit after wonderfully intelligent and attractive Shay enters the picture. She does something for him that puts her in jeopardy and makes her start keeping secrets. Those choices start opening her eyes to a lot of other issues at hand, ones that not only have huge consequences for herself, but for her friends’ and family’s entire way of living.

I had a lot of fun reading this book. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve had this much fun drawing connections since the Harry Potter series. To be honest, I wasn’t sure this was going to happen for me with Nightshade. The first chapter puts Calla in unfamiliar territory, and the way with which she handles the situation had that paranormal same old, same old, “I-feel-compelled-to-help/protect-this-person-even-though-I-shouldn’t-but-I-just-can’t-help-myself” tone. Very Edward Cullen. Edward is so not my type.

Now, stick with it, true believers, because the rest of the book is freaking rad. Andrea took a common paranormal group and gave it a completely new mythology and society. If you like a good old-fashioned love triangle, philosophical and historical references (political or otherwise), gender issues, good vs. evil with a twist and a right hook, and mix in something of a dystopian flair, then oh, baby, you are going to like this read.

On top of that, the characterization is great – it seems like everyone, even the minor secondary characters, has a good backstory or personal conflict. Andrea paces the narrative so it comes out at a natural flow, and it’s very cool how she shows that personal issues affect group dynamics. Then, there’s the main show of the Calla/Ren/Shay love triangle. Calla has genuine affection for both, although she feels a greater pull towards Shay. Personally, I am not convinced that always will be the case. Her choice (if she ever gets one) would be a lot simpler if one of the guys was awful. However, Ren is not the asshole he initially is painted to be, and I suspect that Shay will give us a few surprises as we continue in the series. In a way, both guys represent the choice that Calla will have to make: despite Ren’s cockiness, he truly believes in his duty to care for and lead the pack (group identity), and Shay is a staunch advocate of personal choice and open knowledge (personal identity). Both care for Calla with a genuine fierceness that is both touching and overwhelming. Now, if that weren’t enough for our soon-to-be-of-age heroine to deal with, add in some parental pressure, realizing your bosses possibly are not the good guys (or maybe they are), and feeling responsible for everyone else’s happiness before your own. . . well, you can see why our girl Calla might be a wee bit stressed.

Here are the chief issues/ideas in this book:

*hierarchy and class issues (you think wolves would be at the top, but oh nooooo)
*gender inequality (seriously, some of the guys in this . . . shudder)
*personal identity/choice vs. group identity/responsibility
*lack of control over one’s own life
*duty vs. freedom
*ignorance and comfort as control devices

Also, if you are not familiar with philosophy, I think Andrea does a great job of giving the reader enough information to understand the story through dialogue. The way she does it is fantastic and keeps your attention. However, if you aren’t so familiar with classical philosophy, you may miss her fabulous nod to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

And that’s all I’m giving you. Seriously, read the book. You will feel in the dark in the beginning, but I assure you, you will know everything about this world as you need to. Andrea keeps the book moving between the knowledge reveals and, all of the sudden, you realize that you are learning about this universe right along with Shay.

I’m hooked, Andrea. Color me a happy, happy fan.

Overall: A show less

Book RANT: For those unfamiliar, there are occasions when I'll read a book that SOUNDS perfect for me, and may indeed include details that suit me quite well, but SOMETHING ruins the entire thing for me. That's when I rant about my unhappiness and the injustice of it all.

Please note I will rant, rave and curse the gods for the author's writing and the book's content. I will never attack an author on a personal level and I do try to remain constructive.

Today we have Nightshade a Young Adult Paranormal that had me literally gnashing my teeth.

Since this book rant has spoilers, I'm placing the majority under a cut.

What I liked:
I really enjoyed the world building of this book. It was something different; you have the Guardians (the show more werewolves), the Keepers (the ones they protect, who keep the world in Balance), the Searchers (the 'enemy' the Guardians protect the Keepers from) and than the regular old humans who are stuck in the middle. The Guardians don't see any reason to keep themselves under wraps, as long as they don't go shouting to the humans 'hey we can be wolves!' all is good. The Keepers meanwhile are doing pretty much the same thing, just they don't turn into wolves. All that undercurrent tension makes itself very apparent to the humans who segregate themselves pretty far away.

I liked that the Keepers were obviously power-tripping maniacs, who did bad things (a lot) and probably would win sociopaths of the year if anyone so cared to make that award. They had their own little clans (in this book its the Nightshades--Calla--and the Banes--Ren) they oversaw, had some fighting, but by in large they treated the Guardians the worst. There wasn't a single redeeming feature for them and for that I found them entertaining to read about.

I felt that the way Cremer handled the Guardians was refreshing. They don't so much as become wolves as they are always both, but never at the same time. Just depends on which body they want to walk around in. They retain some of their wolfy-ness as humans and vice versa. I also liked that the Banes and Nightshades may have been rivals, but they make a good effort to be more of an integrated group when the time comes. Calla and Ren's idea to begin melding the group before it was necessary was important and I thought clever.

I loved Ren. He was a playboy, and arrogant and pushed Calla, but he also respected her wishes. He tried to make things work between them, he took her advice and didn't sneer at her. He respected her as an equal Alpha leader--maybe he didn't agree with her decisions, but he didn't try to undermine her or take away her power. Was he a bit of a jerk and bully at times? Yeah, but he also showed real emotional turmoil when discussing what was happening in his own Pack.

What I did not like:
CALLA. No seriously. I was kind of intrigued with her in the beginning chapters, when it was obvious she was trying to mold her own future and do what was best for her Pack. I was kind of irritated with how standoffish she would be with Ren, than what a tease, than standoffish, than outraged...sure they couldn't 'consummate' their union until the actual ceremony, but for crying out loud! She was such a tease! She'd tell Ren they needed to stop, but would cave pretty quickly, only to get angry at herself (which quickly became anger at Ren) and start the cycle all over again. Then also she was something of a two-faced hypocrite. On the one hand she was planning her upcoming union with Ren, making him believe her whole heart was into it (well as much as he was, they were both kind of doom and gloom twins at times) and on the other it was 'Oh Shay...he makes me feel so wibbly wobbly'.

The Calla that was a good leader, and a strong alpha and who I wanted to read about would suddenly become a lovestruck idiot, flaunting common sense and authority. I understand that there is something fishy about the whole business of the Keepers and Shay, but Calla lost all sense when with Shay. Ren was bending over backwards to do whatever she asked of him in regards to their relationship and the upcoming Union, but she repaid him with lying and falling in love with another guy.

Which brings me to SHAY. Oh ye gods above. Half the time he was very milquetoast--worried, distracted and doing his level best to put himself into suicidal situations. The other half he was pushing Calla to flaunt tradition, get rid of Ren, love him more and trust him more. Some of Calla's very serious and very reasonable objections--like I don't know, the entire fate of her people?--just breezed past him. Let me say this once: love does not conquer all. If a person says something along the lines of 'we need to tread carefully because my masters have no compunction about killing us all if we are caught' the reaction should not be 'run away!'.

He didn't take her responsibility to her Pack very seriously I don't think. Or he chose to ignore it in favor of doing things to get himself killed.

I skipped around for the last two hundred plus pages of the ARC and unless I was missing all the dramatic shifts of character in the passages I wasn't reading, not much seems to change. In fact I think the end, where I thought Calla was going to do the right thing and finally trust Ren, and stop treating him like an unwanted stalker, she goes and does a very stupid thing. Karma kicks her butt for it though. And I won't lie I kind of rooted for it. Maybe, just maybe, in the second book she'll weigh her options a little and realize 'going this alone is the worst possible idea I've ever had'.

And god help her if she hurts Ren (emotionally speaking) some more. I'll invent a way to climb into this book and beat the snot out of her.


As you can see I had some very...strong...feelings about this book. Its not very often I'll come across a book that I want to enjoy with every fiber of my being, but can't because the main character makes me want to shoot her. But this is my purely bias'ed opinion. Around the blog-o-sphere the book seems to be quite popular, so maybe I'm just missing something. show less

I work in a bookstore and have seen some online buzz about this book, so when it was released I thought I'd check it out.

I'm glad I did. I read a lot of teen fiction and there is a lot of dreck out there, pandering to the lowest possible appeal of the teen paranormal genre, formulaic and without strong female characters, peddling values to young girls I often find questionable.

This is not one of those books. I was pleasantly surprised at how the werewolf mythology was fresh and not only used to convey strong messages about sexuality, choices, questioning tradition and values (I found Guardian tradition a fantastic metaphor for patriarchal hegemony, to be honest), but done in a way that was actually very engaging. Calla was an alpha show more female whose character was meant to adhere to tradition, but she questions it without just being belligerent or angsty. Plus, there were a lot of well-rounded characters and a love triangle that didn't upset me, nor was it lopsided in who you root for (at least in my case--I found appeal in both Ren and Shay).

This is definitely a book I will recommend to teen girls without hesitation. Can't wait for the next book either. show less

Nightshade has the markings of a wonderful story, the plot was spectacular - wolves and witches, secrets, a mysterious ceremony and some very fun secondary characters. However, what made it quite the opposite were the main characters Calla and Shay.

From the very beginning of the story, Andrea Cremer set up her love triangle, Calla, an alpha, saves the human Shay - for reasons she cannot understand - and has strong feelings of attraction towards him, yet she’s promised to Renier the alpha of another pack with whom she will be forming her own pack. This is the beginning of the story’s downfall.

Calla (a wolf who can shift to human) is suppose to be a strong female lead, independent, smart, leader of her pack but she never shows this show more throughout the story. I almost feel as though she doesn’t care about her pack, she is mostly a selfish person who seems more influenced by someone she just met as opposed to people she has known forever.

Shay is annoying. He claims that Ren treats Calla like property while he basically tries to tell her what to do with her life. He does not understand her background and her culture, but he immediately assumes that everything she believes in is wrong and tries to changer her to someone he thinks is better, this is not love and it’s sad that this is what’s selling as love.

The other characters in the book - mostly the other wolves - behave much more like wolves than Calla. They were also much more interesting than Calla, and in a way I wish this was a story from one of their point of views rather than Calla’s. This is one book where I cared more about the secondary characters than I did about the protagonist. Even Ren - who, by the way, was suppose to be a bad boy, according to Shay and Calla - seems to be a stronger and more consistent character.

This book could have been a sophisticated novel, but in the end it was just fluff. It was a great story but it was tainted with the cheap thrill of a poorly constructed love triangle, and I don’t care enough about the love triangle or any of the main characters to carry on reading the rest of the trilogy. show less

It took me forever to get into this book, I mean forever in my book reading world since I usually can devour a book or two within a 24 hour period. This one took me over a week to read. It wasn't that it was bad, it was just something about it just couldn't hold my interest. It might have been the fact that Calla had started out as this strong fierce Alpha female. But then Shay comes into the picture and Ren gets all jealous, which can you blame him. Through the entire book Ren is trying to win Calla's affection and convince her that his feelings aren't just duty related, but are real. And Shay OMG can anyone be anymore annoying I mean seriously!!!! That boy would have gotten kicked and punch waaay too many times by me, I mean he show more literally bullied her into liking him, well it seemed that way in my opinion. And now she's turned her back on Ren and her pack... damb ass move if you ask me yes it she went with Ren and didn't turn her back on what she knew it wouldn't have made an interesting book. OK well until like page 200 or so is when I finally got interested in it enough to finish it. And I still wanted to smack Shay over and over and got to the point where I wanted to smack Calla too and just ask her "what the hell are you thinking you dumbass?!" but oh well I was going to say I hope things get better in the further books, but i'm afraid I might be disappointed as well in those, but I will read them, because I have this insane obsession of finishing a series once I've started it. And so Bring on Wolfsbane! show less

In Calla’s world there are Keepers, Guardians, Searchers, and everyone else. As a Guardian she is expected to do her duty without question, but when cute outsider Shay comes along, suddenly all she has is question after question – and no answers. This is a thoughtfully created world in which Cremer addresses hierarchies and politics and gender roles right alongside a fast-paced, romantic story.
First of all, I’ll touch on the romantic angle of the story. There are very few times when I read a book with a love triangle in which one boy doesn’t seem like the obvious choice. And even though I think I know where this is leading, I can honestly say that Calla could choose Ren or Shay (or neither, for that matter) and it wouldn’t show more shock me. That’s because both boys are fully developed characters, both having admirable qualities and serious flaws. There were moments when I’d be sure one boy didn’t stand a chance with Calla but then he’d prove me wrong. Though she seemed to be drawn to them in different ways, I was able to see that she did have strong feelings for both boys.
With this love triangle Cremer dives deep into the role that gender plays when it comes to perception, something that is prevalent even though we often like to think of ourselves as so evolved and full of equality. There are so many times when there are male characters in a book who flirt, date, and sleep their way into the hearts of crowds of girls around them, and readers seem to love it. But yet, when a girl character does it, she’s often seen as a tease, slut, or worse – even if it only stops at flirting. The double standard is real. This situation with Calla forces readers to actually think about it. Is it okay for guys and not for girls? If not, why are we so quick to label girls when guys don’t tend to get those labels? The book definitely gives food for thought.
As I finished this book, I was left with so many more questions than answers, not only about the story, but about the relevant issues the story addresses. This is a perfect start to the series, with detailed world-building and the promise of much more action to come. show less

Nightshade has literally sprouted a new series addiction for me! This recent release is one of a kind. While there may be tons of paranormal books out there right now, Nightshade is a must read. This novel intertwines history, romance and werewolves all in one book; something that I have never seen.

I really enjoyed the werewolf perspective in Nightshade. First of all, we have Calla, she is an Alpha in her pack, women werewolves are rarely mentioned in novels let alone having one be an alpha. Call is a tough, bad to the bone, kind of girl. She is a new heroine that everyone will want to read more about. Also, the werewolves in this novel are not your typical kind of wolves. To them being a wolf is something they want. They don’t go show more around hunting down humans to eat and they don’t lose themselves to the wolf at any point in time; they consider themselves guardians. These wolves remind me of ancient, Native American stories. They are there as protectors not enemies.

If the uniqueness of this novel doesn’t call you to read it, then I can guarantee you that swoon worthy Shay will. Shay is like the epic, of epic YA hotties. I read Nightshade a few months ago and I am still daydreaming about the hotness that is Shay. This one guy had the ability to flip Calla’s world upside down in a matter of seconds. Also, he is just one of the sweetest, most romantic characters you will find. I like that he is modern romantic though, he is a believable character. You can see in the story that Shay is sort of an outcast, the way he speaks and his hobbies all add to this. I really like that the relationship between Calla and Shay is everlasting but with a teen vibe to it.

This series will hook you in right away. The ending in the first book left so many unanswered questions; you will be crazy not to go back for more. You can tell that a lot of work went into making Nightshade; it is one of those novels that is well written and clean. The scenes are very descriptive and you can easily place yourself in the story.

Nightshade was recently released on October 19, be sure to get your copy as soon as possible. This is one of those series you don’t want to miss out on. Even if you aren’t too into YA novels the story in this book calls out to adult readers as well. show less