Monday, July 15, 2013

Book Review: Elite by Rachel Van Dyken


ISBN-13: 9781455554164
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication date: 7/9/2013
Series: Eagle Elite

Synopsis:
                                                                                                          
 When I won the annual Eagle Elite College Scholarship lottery, I was thrilled. After all, my grandma had just died and I wanted to take care of my aging grandpa -- he couldn't be a farmer in Wyoming forever. And graduating from Eagle Elite meant opportunity.
But I wasn't counting on meeting Nixon.

 Nor was I counting on the rules of the Elect.

1. Do not touch The Elect.

2. Do not look at The Elect.

3. Do not speak to The Elect.

And worst of all? Don't discover the secret they hide, because in the end, you may just realize... it's about you.

Okay, I stayed up till 2 am reading this book. And the later it got, the better it got. So I'm not sure if the late hour and a sluggish brain made this book seem better than it really was, or if I really did like it.

I am hesitant to read too many of the newly categorized "New Adult" books. They are usually teenage characters that have a lot of overly emotional sex. And I don't care for that. This book wasn't like that. The characters are in college, but it's a fairly tame book for this new category.

The best way to summarize this book is this: Twilight with the mafia instead of vampires.

Seriously, after reading it, I think the author used Twilight as a plot guide for this book.  The main difference between the two books (if you subtract the vampire vs. mob thing) is that the characters in twilight were much more developed.

Very rarely do I think an author should have written more. And I'm not referring to the ending, as it is set up to have a sequel. I'm referring to the development of the characters and the emotional state of the relationships. I wish the author would have taken a little more time to show us specifically what these characters were feeling. Don't get me wrong, I liked the book and I would have downloaded the sequel immediately if it were published. But there were several times throughout the book where I thought, give me more.  I want to know more about them. Make me care about them just a little bit more.

The whole mafia thing isn't one I've read a lot about, so it was something new and interesting. But I got the connection of the main character immediately. It was kind of annoying that the main character herself didn't see it. At one point I thought, okay this girl is kinda stupid.

But for the most part, it was an interesting read that left me wanting to know what happens next in this series. I will for sure get the next one when it comes out, especially since they are only priced at $2.99.

Overall:
* Interesting characters
* Interesting love plot
* Predictable suspense plot
* Almost exactly like Twilight except that the Twilight author took five books to tell the story and this author rushes through enough that it should NOT take five books to tell the story.
* I will read the sequel
* Somewhat violent, but not overly sexual

This book was an advanced readers copy provided by NetGalley.

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