Review: Wildalone by Krassi Zourkova

First, I have to thank the author who sent me a copy of this in exchange for an honest review.  I had entered a giveaway on Goodreads but didn't win.  She emailed me on Goodreads and offered to send me a copy.  I was very excited and of course said yes because I'd been wanting to read this for a long time. 

The main character is Thea, and she is from Bulgaria.  She is a piano prodigy, and has decided to attend Princeton.  Of course she does this on a work-study program and so she will have to work in the cafeteria to go there.  When she first gets to Princeton, her music advisers immediately set her up in a solo concert.  She plays Chopin, and is a hit.  Even though she is very nervous.  And the night of the concert, this very handsome guy shows up in the back of the auditorium, and then leaves.  But then comes back towards the end and leaves flowers for her on the stage.  She gets a mysterious assignment from her Greek Art professor that leads her to a vase that seems to have a connection to her home and a myth that she is familiar with.  It is of a woman who is like a witch or nymph that can captivate a man to the point that he will do anything she says, and eventually she kills him.  They are called samodivi, which means wildalone in English.  While she is in the school's art museum, she runs into this handsome, mysterious man again, but he doesn't really come out of the shadows.  Just says that he will find her again, and when the museum announces it is closing, he disappears.  She runs into him again when she is out on campus on a foggy day.  His name is Rhys, and he is immediately all over her.  Very romantic and suave and kind of possessive.    He wants her to be his, and she is immediately overwhelmed, but in a kind of good way, just being swept away by him.  However she soon comes to find out that he is not the guy who was at her concert, or in the museum.  That was his younger brother Jake.  And now she doesn't know for sure which one she really loves.  But there is something about Rhys that she loves, that she doesn't want to give up on.  However there are things about him that she doesn't like, things he says he can't change, even if he would want to, but that he will always be hers. 

Along with all this romance, there is the mystery of her older sister who also went to Princeton 15 years ago, but died/disappeared. And it seems that she may have been involved with Rhys as well.  And that the myths her Greek Art professor has been teaching and discussing with her, well, they may be real.  Or at least happening in Thea's own world, affecting her life as she is there, following in her sister's footsteps.

I loved the mythology in the story.  I enjoyed reading about Thea's experiences as a foreigner in the US, especially at Princeton.  The past mystery about her sister was also good.  And while I could definitely feel how hot the relationship was with Rhys, it just was almost too insta-love for me.  Not only that, he was so possessive it was kind of hard to like him at first.  For him to come in an assume she would do all the things he tried at the start, well, I didn't have a whole lot of respect for her for putting up with it the way she did.  If people think Edward was bad in Twilight (which I didn't think he was), then they will probably not like Rhys in this book.  I guess we can forgive her because as I mentioned, she was new to the country.  However it definitely kept me reading, and it left off in a way that I can't wait to read on, although I'm not sure when a sequel might be out.  I only know that I'll be waiting to read it!

Review: Feuds by Avery Hastings

Thanks to Edelweiss and St. Martin's Griffin for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  I am a huge fan of dystopian and this sounded right up my alley.  Overall I felt it was a good story, while I was left with something feeling missing, but not in a way that I won't read on as I'm sure it must continue!

The main character is Davis Morrow.  As you can probably tell from the cover, she is a ballerina.  And a perfect ballerina.  She is one of the Priors, people born perfect, the higher class you might say.  They are perfect in every way, and hers is dancing, which she is even getting ready to compete in the tryouts for the Olympics.  But there is a lot of unrest in this society.  The Imperfects, called Imps for short, are in unrest.  Davis's father is a politician who wants to help keep the two classes apart more efficiently.  The other character is Cole.  Cole is an Imp, but a very attractive one.  He also fights in what are called the FEUDS.  These are cage fights basically, to the death in some cases, and the Priors go and place bets on them.  Cole has been sponsored by the rival politician to Davis's dad so he can fight.  And then Cole is asked to go find Davis and get a picture of her kissing him.  Cole doesn't know about who her dad is, but he goes in order to keep his sponsor happy.  But at the party where they meet, he is able to pass as a Prior and Davis is definitely attracted.  But there is trouble.  There is a girl that Davis thinks is just really drunk, but she turns out to be sick.  Cole takes her back to where the Imps live and asks his brother's friend who is kind of a doctor to look at the girl.  It turns out she has a virus called Narxis, something that only the Priors are susceptible to because of their "perfect" genetic makeup.  The Priors don't like to deal with this though, and so they keep dumping the bodies down at the Imps' neighborhoods.  Davis starts feeling like she may be sick, and people she knows are also dropping out of sight.  Of course it will come to light that Cole is an Imp, and in the worst of ways, when Davis follows him to a fight.  But she will overcome this issue as she knows that he has an idea of what is going on, and her feelings for him are so strong.

Definitely a bit of a formulaic story, but not in a bad way.  It was still an enjoyable read.  There is even a bit of a shocker that we find out about Davis and her dead ballerina mother towards the end that makes me eager to read on and find out how it plays into the story.  If you're looking for a good dystopian society type of read, and you don't mind not a totally different idea then you will enjoy this.  Now it is definitely an insta-love story, but I've come to a conclusion about that which makes me able to enjoy it with no issues.  These are teenagers.  When you were a teen, or maybe you still are, don't you fall in love with people, and it seems like they are the one?  I know my first "love" was like that.  And even though now I look back and realize it wasn't really love, these are teens in tenuous situations that make ever having another love possibly impossible.