Review: My Soul To Take by Rachel Vincent

My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent


My rating: 3 of 5 stars


3.5 stars


Kaylee is a banshee (or bean-sidhe in Irish legend) but has been raised completely unaware of her heritage and her powers. What she originally thinks are panic attacks are soon revealed to actually be premonitions of death. When she sees a girl surrounded in shadow in a club she knows that girl is going to die and struggles to hold back an ear-splitting scream of despair. She is helped by her best friend Emma, and Nash- a guy from school. When Kaylee later learns what she is and learns how to recognise what is happening to her she is horrified when it starts happening again- another young girl dies suddenly without cause, and Kaylee and Nash start trying to discover who is harvesting souls and why, and need to make a plan to try and stop it. They are helped by Tod- a young grim reaper whose job it is to collect souls according to his "schedule" (death is very organised and beaurocratic don'tcha know and reapers have a strict heirarchy). The story becomes a mystery, and all the different supernatural aspects are revealed to us as Kaylee learns about it.


I don't like being negative with reviews but it needs to be said. Ok- barely twenty pages in and we had the main character Kaylee who doesn't think she is very pretty, being chatted up by "hottest guy in school" football player Nash, and I couldn't help rolling my eyes. Despite their relationship feeling a bit rushed the story does get better nearer the end of the book. I can't understand why everyone else seems to be rating this 5 stars, and although I thought this was a good book that's all it was, just "good". Although the concept of soul screamers is new to the paranormal genre, the romance and premise wasn't anything new or exceptional.


On the positive side I did like the characterisation in this book. Kaylee and Nash are both great, typical teenagers and very likeable, and the secondary cast of characters were excellent- Kaylee's self-absorbed cousin and health-obsessed aunt, and I liked Tod a lot despite not knowing who he really was or what he was after for most of the book. And I didn't see the ending coming- excellent.




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