"Nightshade" by Andrea Cremer

From Goodreads: "Calla Tor has always known her destiny: After graduating from the Mountain School, she'll be the mate of sexy alpha wolf Ren Laroche and fight with him, side by side, ruling their pack and guarding sacred sites for the Keepers. But when she violates her masters' laws by saving a beautiful human boy out for a hike, Calla begins to question her fate, her existence, and the very essence of the world she has known. By following her heart, she might lose everything— including her own life. Is forbidden love worth the ultimate sacrifice?"

To start off, I have to gush about this cover. This is hand-down the most beautiful cover I have ever seen before (and I have seen some pretty beautiful covers before like "Fallen" and "Torment" by Lauren Kate, "Halo", and whatnot). When I originally bought the book I thought that if the book wasn't that great, I would be okay with that, just because the cover is so beautiful...  (which thankfully I didn't have to worry about).

Anyways, on to the story. This book is very much the case of girl and boy meet, as they look at one another/ touch one another they fall madly and deeply in love (all within an hour of knowing one another). As everyone has probably determined by now, I hate when this happens in books, mainly because it is not realistic whatsoever, and I personally believe that the stuff that happens as two people fall in love is extremely interesting. However, I didn't fully hate that this happened in this book. I mean, it did bug me, but it didn't completely turn me off of the book (*cough, cough, "Halo" by Alexandra Adornetto)... I think that what made up for this occurring was the boys....

Oh, the boys... It's weird, lately while reading books where the female character has to choose between two boys, I haven't been able to choose which boy I prefer, or if I do choose between the two boys, I only like one over the other by a fraction (ie. Gale and Peeta in "The Hunger Games" trilogy) and in the first half of the novel, I, for the life of me, could not choose between Ren and Shay. I also found it weird that I liked Ren in this book. Usually I am anti-player boy, but with Ren, I was almost able to overlook the fact that he was a player, mainly due to the fact that he clearly cared about Calla and when he was a sweet, he was a really sweet (ie. giving her the ring). On the other hand, well, Shay was the perfect snarky/ sarcastic boy who also clearly cared about Calla. So how is a girl to choose? I did end up picking my favourite between the boys about halfway through the novel, but I still felt really bad for the boy that I didn't choose (the one who Calla didn't end up with in the end) and I think that because of his sacrifice at the end of the novel he still might have a chance with her.

While reading this book I found myself growing more and more frustrated with Calla. I felt like she was playing both boys way too much in this book. I understand that she was confused and everything, but there was another option available, she could have isolated herself from both in order to think over the decision carefully without having any outside influences impacting her decision (as opposed to making out with both of them, making them both think that he was the one she was obviously going to choose in the end).

I did find that this book was pretty predictable in some matters, but not in others. When it was first discovered that Shay was the Scion and that the Scion was a "gift" or something or another, I groaned, predicting (correctly) how this was going to play out with the union between Calla and Ren. On the other hand, I did think that what happened between Calla and Shay in the cave would eventually happen, I just didn't think that it would happen that suddenly or in that instance. I wish that in that part that it had been more elaborated upon, I found it to be quite rushed (it only took up a couple of pages at most), I would have loved hearing more about the process of transformation and whatnot. So it was nice that some things were still able to take me by surprise (and I am sure that lots will take me by surprise in the next novel in the series, "Wolfsbane", as so many questions were left unanswered in this book).

I loved the secondary characters in this book (which is also quite surprising as I typically loathe them). I found them to be so dynamic and multi-faceted. For instance, Sabine, the obvious bitchy/ slutty girl, who despite it all, is obviously an extremely caring person as she does everything in her power to protect her pack member, Cosette, from the big bad world, Neville, the quiet boy whose music and poetry speak volumes, and Ansel, the little brother, who throughout the novel is discovering himself and what he wants in life, all the while, protecting his older sister, no matter the cost to himself.

All in all, this is a great book (both the story and the cover). This book is perfect for the reader who loves a balance of the paranormal and romance (seriously, this book is an extremely hot YA novel).

Rating: 3/5