Review--13 to Life

Everything about Jessie Gillmansen's life has changed when her mother died. Now even her hometown of Junction is changing. Mysterious dark things are happening. All Jessie wants is to avoid more change. But while showing a hot new guy around Junction High, she's about to discover a whole new type of change. Pietr Rusakova is more than good looks and a fascinating accent--he's a guy with a dangerous secret. And his very existence is sure to bring big trouble to Jessie's small town. It seems change is the one thing Jessie can't avoid.

Just finished Shannon Delany's debut novel, 13 to Life and OMG it was fabulous! Lately I've been devouring werewolf books, or picking them up at least or awaiting their release and I can't get enough of them!

13 to Life is no disappoint whatsoever. It was really-really gripping! It started out simple enough, you don't really get into the werewolf business right away. But there are hints dropped every now and then. Because if the cover wasn't obvious enough, you know it deals with werewolves. You find that out by looking at Shannon's website!

Jessie is still dealing with her mother's death that happened suddenly and still haunts her. She has her friends at her side, a crush that is finally starting to notice her, but then she gets called into guidance and worries she's about to have another talking to. But she is surprised to find out that she has to deal with a different matter altogether and that is showing the new guy around Junction High.

Jessie isn't too pleased with the assignment because she doesn't know what to make of Pietr. Sure he's hot and seems nice, but there are little bits of his behavior that throw her off and she can't seem to get rid of him despite all the other girls in school wanting to be his tour guide or whatever.

What she doesn't count on is the friendship that starts between them. And she soon even starts to like him despite her warring feelings between him and her crush, who still pays more attention to her off and on. But then one of her friends, Sarah admits to having a crush on him and she doesn't want anything to hurt Sarah because she has already been through so much and has had to deal with her own pain. Which is later revealed further in the book, and is a spoiler so I won't talk anymore about it!

But fighting her desires to be Pietr is harder than she thought and Pietr has his own wants as well.

This book was literally so gripping I couldn't put it down. If I hadn't had to work and have that mess up my schedule this would've been a 1 day read, it was that good! The characters are so detailed and deep. Delany really put her heart into writing this because you can really see and hear these characters. Each one is distinct in their own way and they stand out.

The big action scene towards the end is where things really start bringing up questions. Before it was one here and there and it was answered with time, but at the end there are a lot more questions that are brought up and while things come together, you are still left wondering!

And the only upside is knowing that we have less than a year to read more, but we still have to wait until the next calendar year, so really is it that much of an upside, I find myself asking?

And I just have to mention how much I LOVE this cover. It's what I saw when I was scanning tables of author promo at RT and it grabbed me. I stared at it and had to find out more and luckily found a little postcard of info. And then I talked to Shannon at the signing on Saturday explaining how excited I was about the book and all I knew was the cover was amazing and the BOC that was on it really had me wanting to know what was going on.

While the BOC makes it seem like the story will be a simple girl meets boy and learns he has a secret, it really has much more depth than that. True that is the simplest way to explain, but the secret really goes deeper and has much more details than you would think. There are many-many secrets in this book, with hidden betrayals and oh-so much more. Hence my agony at having to wait until February to read the next one. And I thought waiting from the end of April to now was bad. Damn it.

The next book in this new AMAZING series is Secrets and Shadows, releasing in February 2011. Will post a date and cover once I come across it!

Stay reading readers!