Review: Lailah by Nikki Kelly

Book Blurb: The girl knows she’s different. She doesn’t age. She has no family. She has visions of a past life, but no clear clues as to what she is, or where she comes from. But there is a face in her dreams – a light that breaks through the darkness. She knows his name is Gabriel. On her way home from work, the girl encounters an injured stranger whose name is Jonah. Soon, she will understand that Jonah belongs to a generation of Vampires that serve darker forces. Jonah and the few like him are fighting with help from an unlikely ally, a rogue Angel named Gabriel. In the crossfire between good and evil, love and hate, and life and death, the girl learns her name: Lailah. But when the lines between black and white begin to blur, where in the spectrum will she find her place? And with whom? My Review: 2 out of 5 Stars Genre: Supernatural, Vampires, Angels Francesca works at a local pub, keeping to herself while living in an abandoned house in the forest. One night, she encounters an injured vampire named Jonah who she decides to help against her better judgment. Francesca may not know who she is, but she knows about vampires and that they can’t be trusted. She is trust into the middle of a battle between vampires and angels, both sides trying to figure out what role she plays in the world because one thing they agree on is that she is not human and her name is Lailah. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I could not get into this book to save my life. I kept making excuses for why I was not interested, maybe I was tired, or distracted…But really, no matter how many times I picked it up I was not in the least bit interested in reading it. I could not connect to the characters and the plot was a big messed up jumble. Which completely bums me out because I really wanted to like the book, I just couldn’t. I really did not care to finish the book, but as per my strange compulsion I did, and I feel really terrible saying that I still didn’t care at the end. Let’s start with the things that I did like. I thought the supernatural factions and hierarchy were very original. The book has angels as we call them, but really they are like alien beings from another dimension called Styclar who take souls to use for an energy source. The “angels” good intentions follow the path just like the bible over the split to good and evil which I found to be a completely different way to look at heaven and hell. Also, vampires have a Master who controls all aspects of their lives and Gabriel (the love interest angel) has a way of rehabilitating the escaped vampires. All very neat world building, but not enough to make a book I enjoyed. And yes, there is a love triangle. What teen book would be complete without one? Can I just take a second to go off on a tangent that this title is classified as a teen book, yet nobody in the book is a remotely a teen and that there is a lot of sexual tension and inappropriate situations. So anyway, there is a love triangle between Francesca who doesn’t know what she is (who is really Lailah but nobody knows this but Gabriel) and who just so happens to be the Queen of stupid rash decision making skills, Gabriel the “Angel” who she has a forgotten past with that she wants to be intimate with regardless of him pushing her away and all his secrets, and Jonah the completely upfront vampire she healed who she has crazy sexual feelings for but doesn’t trust. Let me be completely truthful that I don’t really like any of the characters so it doesn’t matter really to me who she ends up with, but for once I would like a clear relationship with out the wishy-washy of who she should love. I have developed a hate for love triangles. Oh and as a reminder, in the middle of all this relationship angst, there are people who desperately want to take/kill Lailah, but the story dealt more with personal relationships and clothing choices than any battle that had the potential to be interesting. I wanted to like this, I really did, and I tried so hard to get invested, but I just couldn’t. I found the book to be lacking cohesion, the plot and actions jumped around so much I was completely lost sometimes as to what I was reading. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good psychological mess of a book to keep the reader on their toes, but that was not what this was trying to be, instead it was at times just a mess. I felt relief when it was over and even though there is a cliffhanger, I will not be reading the next book. I am sure others will really enjoy this story, but it was not for me. I received this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.