Title: The Summoning
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Series: Darkest Powers, #1
Genres: Supernatural, Urban Fantasy, Young Adult
Publisher: HarperCollins
Date Published: June 1st, 2008
Edition: Hardcover
Rating:
After years of frequent moves following her mother’s death, Chloe Saunders’s life is finally settling down. She is attending art school, pursuing her dreams of becoming a director, making friends, and meeting boys. Her biggest concern is that she’s not developing as fast as her friends are. But when puberty does hit, it brings more than hormone surges. Chloe starts seeing ghosts–everywhere, demanding her attention. After she suffers a breakdown, her devoted aunt Lauren gets her into a highly recommended group home.
At first, Lyle House seems a pretty okay place, except for Chloe’s small problem of fearing she might be facing a lifetime of mental illness. But as she gradually gets to know the other kids at the home–charming Simon and his ominous, unsmiling brother Derek, obnoxious Tori, and Rae, who has a “thing” for fire–Chloe begins to realize that there is something that binds them all together, and it isn’t your usual “problem kid” behaviour. And together they discover that Lyle House is not your usual group home either…
My Review:
This is one of the many books that have been on my to-read shelf for over a year, going on years. So when I received an ARC of The Calling, I decided I’d finally give it a go. While I won’t have time to read The Calling before it comes out (I’ll be giving that away in a little bit, so be sure to come back to enter), it did give me the push I needed to read the series finally.
Now, I did go into this kind of expecting something a little different. I think with the titles I was thinking it would be more of a fantasy than an urban fantasy. You know, with adventures and castles, complete with lots of magic and spells and such. Instead I got a very urban setting and I think that caught me off guard a bit. But also I was just expecting it to be really amazing too just from what I’ve heard about the series as a whole.
Honestly, I’m not getting it though, at least not yet. I kept expecting something more exciting and crazy to happen. While it did get really interesting at the end of the book, the getting there was very slow-going and a little bit boring. A lot of that seemed to have to do with Chloe trying to figure out what in the world is going on with her and the place she’s staying at.
So in a lot of ways, I think that the slowness and lack of a big story until the end of the book had to do with world and character building. Which would be totally fine if that’s the case. We’ll have to see about all that in the next book though. But, as far as Chloe and the other characters went, I wasn’t really feeling any of them throughout the book. They’re alright and not necessarily annoying or anything, but I just wasn’t attached to any of them.
With all that being said, it still seems like an interesting world that has a lot of secrets yet to be discovered. The ending left me wanting to keep reading (without being a huge cliffhanger mind you). So I’m not giving up on it yet. I definitely want to see where the next book takes Chloe and her friends. I’m hoping there will be more adventure rather than staying in a singular location for most of the book, but we shall see!
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