This is a book I have been waiting to read in the same way I wanted to read Beautiful Creatures. And I am starting to really wonder about the wisdom of getting overly excited and having super high expectations for debut novels based only on cover art, promotional summaries, and author blogs. But I am hesitant to just jump right in and say I didn't like this book for several reasons:#1 Any book that I read following Laurie Halse Anderson is going to seem pedestrian at best and a waste of my time at worst. Even though this is a completely different genre than Wintergirls it is still hard not to constantly compare the quality of writing. And Laurie will always win.
#2 I wonder how much my own expectations contributed to my disappointment. I think if this book had a Simon Romantic Comedy cover and I just picked it up innocently knowing nothing about it I would have liked it. Probably even really liked it. But it is in "take-me-seriously-I-could-be-the-next-Twilight" hardback featuring creepy-pretty cover art on a shiny black background. How could that not set the stage for something more than what The Dark Divine ended up being.
So I guess my verdict would be mixed feelings on this one. I wanted it to be amazing and it wasn't. But it was interesting and entertaining at times. On a teen supernatural fluff scale of Vampire Diaries being drivel (0) and Twilight or The Summoning & The Awakening being high art (10) this falls in the middle with the Alyson Noel books or Deadly Little Secret being passable ("in a pinch") but one would definitely put them down for a while if Golden Girls was on TV (5).
