Andrea Salazar Salazar itibaren Głuszyn, Poland
I read this book as I love the cover of it and I've had it for ages on my Kindle, so thought it was about time to get it read. It was an ok read. Not my usual type of book - far too YA and nowhere near as violent, gory and sexy as I like to read, but it was an interesting idea. Lucinda Price gets sent to a reform boarding school when her friend dies in a fire and she can't explain what happened. Everyone thinks she murdered him and there's no way for her to prove otherwise. So off she goes to this old falling-apart prison of a school. And in typical teenage fashion, on her first day there she spots a gorgeous looking boy and falls for him despite the fact that he gives her the birdie on her first day. Luce also has a feeling that she knows him from somewhere, but doesn't know where. There is another side to Luce - she sees shadows. Dark shadows that move closer to her and those around her. She has no idea what they are, what they want or what they can do to her. They do hold a significant place later on in the book, but I won't spoil it for you! Daniel, the love interest, plays very hot and cold all the time. Cam, another possible love interest, is the opposite - far too pushy and in my opinion an overall creepy guy. Who they both are is revealed and the main idea of the story evolves quite quickly towards the end of the book and neither are what they both first appeared. But then again neither is Lucinda. The author's writing style was easy to read, flowed mostly well, but I did get a bit annoyed at the unfinished chapters at times. Things were happening fast in places and then suddenly the chapter ended and a new one began and the incidents in the previous chapter were not always referred to straight away. The characters were developed well enough I guess - Luce was a particularly great heroine, but I'm not sure she was supposed to be really as she had no idea of what was happening until the end; Arriane was a bit strange at times; Daniel just annoyed me, but once you got his story his behaviour and attitude made sense; Cam creeped me out - I have no idea why Luce kept putting up with him; Penn was a normal, sweetie girl who unfortunately ended up being in the wrong place at the wrong time! I'm not sure I would bother reading the rest of this series. I felt it was ok for a YA book, but not good enough for me to read any more. I just wasn't that interested in the characters to be honest.
This is my all time favorite book. It has the meaning of friendship pretty much wrapped up, and also a great message about mission and purpose. Plus, John Irving is so warped and sometimes strange in his writing, that I think he knows real life pretty well.