Sunday, May 15, 2011

The Gathering (Darkness Rising, #1) by Kelly Armstrong

The Gathering (Darkness Rising, #1) by Kelly Armstrong
Hardcover, 359 pages
Published April 12th 2011 by Harper (HarperCollins), New York
Sixteen-year-old Maya is just an ordinary teen in an ordinary town. Sure, she doesn’t know much about her background – the only thing she really has to cling to is an odd paw-print birthmark on her hip – but she never really put much thought into who her parents were or how she ended up with her adopted parents in this tiny medical-research community on Vancouver Island.Until now. Strange things have been happening in this claustrophobic town – from the mountain lions that have been approaching Maya to her best friend’s hidden talent for “feeling” out people and situations, to the sexy new bad boy who makes Maya feel . . . . different. Combine that with a few unexplained deaths and a mystery involving Maya’s biological parents and it’s easy to suspect that this town might have more than its share of skeletons in its closet. – Goodreads
My Opinion: Hmm this is a difficult review to write because, technically and literally nothing happened in the book other than in the last 30 or so pages. That just bugged me, I kept reading the book because I was expecting something to actually happen and nothing kept happening. The whole book was pretty much Maya learning about herself and what/who she is. There was nothing else for 320 pages and I was just summarizing this story for a friend and I told her main part of the story in 5 sentences. It was just a lot of words.
 
Now for the setting. The setting was interesting. I mean Kelly Armstrong could have done a little more with it. Especially with some of the theories that Maya and Daniel were coming up with about the stories that Reporter would be willing to write. A medical research town owned by a medical engineering company has many possibilities. I HOPE that Armstrong uses that more in the continuing of the series.
 
Characters were overly developed and under developed. We know a lot about Maya. A lot. But almost nothing on Rafe, Annie, Daniel, Sam, and Nicole. It would have been so much better if we didn’t only get a dose of Maya. I would also love to learn more about Serena. My favorite character was Annie, she was warm and nice and not afraid to say what she wanted to say.
 
Overall: 3 out of 5

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