{Review} Forbidden by Syrie James & Ryan M. James

Forbidden

by Syrie James & Ryan M. James

Publisher:  HarperTeen

Pages:  411

Source:  E-book Won in a Giveaway

Available as of January 24, 2012

She should not exist.

He should not love her.

Claire Brennan has been attending Emerson Academy for two years now (the longest she and her mom have remained anywhere) and she's desperate to stay put for the rest of high school. So there's no way she's going to tell her mom about the psychic visions she's been having or the creepy warnings that she's in danger.

Alec MacKenzie is fed up with his duties to watch and, when necessary, eliminate the descendants of his angelic forefathers. He chose Emerson as the ideal hiding place where he could be normal for once. He hadn't factored Claire into his plans. . . .

Their love is forbidden, going against everything Alec has been taught to believe. But when the reason behind Claire's unusual powers is revealed and the threat to her life becomes clear, how far will Alec go to protect her?

 Rating:

Review:

When I first started this book, it was hard to get into. I would read a chapter then hop over to one of my networking sites. But after powering through the first five or six chapters, I was ready to read it to the end only breaking to eat and sleep.

Let’s meet the main characters. Claire Brennan must maintain a 3.8 GPA or risk losing her scholarship to Emerson Academy. She is the class brain because of her study habits but all she wants is to be just like everyone else. Then she starts getting psychic visions at the least opportune times. When her best friend, Erica Fischer, starts asking questions, she tells her everything. Erica becomes Claire’s support system and assists with the visions in any way she can. Alec MacKenzie is the new kid at Emerson.  He is shy, awkward, and klutzy when he first arrives but is accepted by Claire’s friends. Slowly, he begins to open up and act like an actual person.

I loved how Forbidden switched character perspective each chapter. Reading from both Claire and Alec’s point of view helped with character development as well as understanding how their relationship was growing. It allowed for the relationship to be believable even though it blossomed in a period of only a few days.

There are only two things I really didn’t like about this book. First was how it would skip over time without any warning, like a page break. Because of this, I would be stuck in one moment then it would switch to another and I would think, “Wait, how did we get from point A to point B.” Then other times, I would think an extraordinary amount of time had passed, like a week, when it was really only two days. Second, whenever a word with two l’s would show up, one of the l’s would be missing.  For example, the world “really” would show up as “real y.” I don’t know if this is just my copy or all copies, but after a while I got used to the missing l.

Overall, this book kept my attention and I grew to really love the story line and characters. I laughed, cried, and got angry throughout this book. I would definitely recommend Forbidden!

This book satisfies one of my twelve books for the 2012 Debut Author Challenge.