Series: Concealed #1
Author: Sang Kromah
Publication Date: April 6, 2012
- Book Blurb
Some believe that at birth, we’re each born with some sort of guardian angel attached to us, watching from afar, but never seen by the human eye. But they’re wrong. Truth is it’s not that simple. There are certain people, special people, born of this world and of the other, who need that extra protection…that extra guidance. They go their entire lives, unaware of the other world, and unaware of the existence of their own personal watcher that watches from afar. But what happens when fate takes a turn for the worst, and The One who needs the aid of a watcher more than anyone before her can’t be found to be protected?
Bijou Fitzroy is strange. With the chaotic and unwanted gift of being an empath, she has spent her entire life as a sheltered recluse, being homeschooled by her secretive overprotective grandmother, who never stays long enough in one location for Bijou to ever settle and make friends. Not only does she lack social skills, but her physical appearance is so ethereal that it beckons onlookers to look away before she has the chance to make eye contact. Oh, and things get even weirder. Besides the occasional tendency to see strange things that no one else seems to notice, sixteen-year-old Bijou has been plagued by semi-prophetic nightmares of strange creatures her entire life; yet she yearns for sleep, because it’s the only place she gets to see him…well sort of. No matter what Bijou dreams of, the faceless boy is always there like some sort of harbinger of danger, always watching, always waiting. And even though his coming always pre-empts chaos, she’s fallen in love with this boy without a face.
When Bijou and her grandmother move to Eldersburg and she starts to attend the local high school, she meets Sebastian Sinjin, a strange boy, who forces Bijou to question the world around her, and the grandmother she thought she knew. Bijou’s world begins to crumble as the creatures from her nightmares begin to take shape in her reality, the faceless boy becomes real, and town locals begin to disappear as she finds herself at the center of a war she never knew was being fought. Bijou has to stand alone and be the savior everyone expects her to be.
My Thoughts
I tried. I really did. But this book was so all over the place that as much as I wanted to get into it, it was just not possible. Not only were there jumps in setting and people being in and out of a room but the characters were all hateful. Not only hateful but with multiple personalities as well.
I would be reading one part and then suddenly the mood changes and they are doing/talking about something else entirely and I'm left wondering what the hell just happened. I would find myself reading and re-reading paragraphs just to make sure I hadn't missed anything. It was exhausting and annoying.
Then we have the characters themselves. They mention how Sebastian runs hot and cold, but that is a HUGE understatement. The guy has a freaking split personality. I could not keep up with all the mood swings. One second he'd be pissed at her, the next he would kiss her and then just randomly leave the room only to come back and start acting like they were best friends. I didn't get it.
Gigi was one b**ch of a 'grandmother'. She would slap Bijou for the silliest things and kept ordering the girl around like she was a dog on a leash and not a girl. Then Bijou would try to assert some kind of independence and stand up for herself, while all the time thinking she was sorry for being so mean to Gigi. Needless to say, it was a very unhealthy relationship.
Then there is Bijou herself. She was another with multiple personalities. She would act as if her 'going crazy' was something she could handle and try to figure out, but when someone starts pointing it out to her she goes into full on denial. Not only denial, but hysterical. Crying and sobbing, yet apparently she has an inability to let people see her cry. Then what the hell is up with the constant crying? She was also so freaking rude it was astounding. The responses she gives to people genuinely trying to help her were beyond messed up, and she would interrupt with her little sarcastic remarks, which in this case were anything but witty or amusing.
And to top it all off there is a love triangle. Seeing as how I just couldn't like Sebastian what with his hot and cold, Niko looked like the better choice only because he at least knew what he was. One of the bad guys. He was consistent if anything else.
This all leaves me incredibly disappointed. The book had so much promise. The lore of the djinn and how it incorporates with all the other supernatural creatures was such a breath of fresh air. This was the only thing that kept me reading all the way till the halfway point. Unfortunately it just wasn't enough to outweigh all the horrible characters and the constant jumping around.
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