♪♬♩ Happy Birthday to me ha-a-appy birthday to me♩♫♪ & NIGHTSHADE

Howdy!

As you may have guessed from my maudlin meanderings I am now fifty, and I am not taking it well. I remember being sixteen and wishing so hard to be eighteen. Alas and alack it seems I was the fool. Now what do I have to look forward to? If you are over forty you know what to expect at you annual physical when you hit 50: a prescription for something we mostly try to avoid, and I don't care what Katie Couric says it isn't a piece of cake.

But anyway, I guess the alternative is worse than the simultaneous need for wrinkle cream and benzoyl peroxide.

On my recent trip to Vancouver and Seattle. We aren't big night people and usually spend the night reading.  I read a lot of books. One was Nightshade.I was attracted by that White and Ultraviolet hair. Then, after all the build up with the social media mystery, I was eager to read it.


 Nightshade
Andrea Cremer

• Reading level: Young Adult
• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Philomel (October 19, 2010)

This was a Kindle edition I purchased as a preorder on 9/27, I began reading it the day it came out. It was about a one day read.

NIGHTSHADE (October 19, 2010, Philomel)
While other teenage girls daydream about boys, Calla Tor imagines ripping out her enemies’ throats. And she wouldn’t have it any other way. Calla was born a warrior and on her eighteenth-birthday she’ll become the alpha female of the next generation of Guardian wolves. But Calla’s predestined path veers off course the moment she saves the life of a wayward hiker, a boy her own age. This human boy’s secret will turn the young pack's world upside down and forever alter the outcome of the centuries-old Witches' War that surrounds them all. http://www.andreacremer.com/books.html

Calla is a high-school student living in a werewolf world I found intriguing but unexplained until the middle of the book. I didn't get the actual secret about Shay, and why his guardian did what he did.  I found the degree of violence, and the ease with which Calla engaged in it  at first kind of "Yeah!," fist pump. But then I was just disturbed — the violence, betrayal, sexual abuse, arranged marriage. It was starting to remind me of Big Love.

But I do like a good love triangle.  I am pretty odd I guess, I thought Shay was trouble. Smart, disobedient, reckless for himself and others. I really wanted to have her go with Ren. Although I thought the whole arrangement was wicked creepy. But Ren was more mature, more steady,  and Shay wasn't the only guy who could bring Calla to a boil.


The aspect of the slavery without realizing you are slaves was interesting It is hard to imagine the pack learning this and staying complacent.
Not everything is explained, and in that way the story is like a painting. There is still some mystery.

This is a kind of sexy YA book. And, kids see so much violence on TV, movies and video games that this is probably not too violent. But I find the violence in Harry Potter hard to take so what the heck do I know! But my impulse would be 17 and up.

I want to know what happens next. There is much left unsolved, and I don't think I will be disappointed. It was a gripping tale and sometime were creatures are more human than we are. It give an author the ability to point out without pointing out. And, I am dying to know what happens next. 

Please do not take this review to mean I did not like the book. I enjoyed it immensely.