Review: Swoon

Swoon by Nina Malkin

Pages: 425, hardcover

ISBN: 9781416974345

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Date Released: May 19th, 2009

Genre: Young Adult / paranormal romance / ghosts

Source: Library

Premise:

Torn from her native New York City and dumped in the land of cookie-cutter preps, Candice is resigned to accept her posh, dull fate. Nothing ever happens in Swoon, Connecticut...until Dice's perfect, privileged cousin Penelope nearly dies in a fall from an old tree, and her spirit intertwines with that of a ghost. His name? Sinclair Youngblood Powers. His mission? Revenge. And while Pen is oblivious to the possession, Dice is all too aware of Sin. She's intensely drawn to him -- but not at all crazy about the havoc he's wreaking. Determined to exorcise the demon, Dice accidentally sets Sin loose, gives him flesh, makes him formidable. Now she must destroy an even more potent -- and irresistible -- adversary, before the whole town succumbs to Sin's will. Only trouble is, she's in love with him.What do you do when the boy of your dreams is too bad to be true? (Taken from dustjacket)

First off, can I just say that the cover is absolutely gorgeous? I don't know what it is that is just lovely, but I love it. It's like the perfect cover for a YA paranormal romance. The cover was the only reason I got this book from the library. I only allow myself to borrow 5 books at a time, so it was a toss up between this and Lillith St.Crow's Strange Angels. This only won because of the cover.

But apart from the cover, I wasn't really impressed with the novel. I thought it'd actually be worth a read, I thought I'd actually really enjoy it. The premise of the ghost of a boy possessing the body of a young girl's cousin is incredibly intriguing. Moreso, when you know that the young girl falls for the ghost, it's bound to be interesting. But all I was left with was disappointment.
The basic story started out great, when we were figuring things out, just learning about the plot. But as the novel progressed, I can't say I was too convinced. All the oddities that had begun to happen, and their reasons for occuring were incredibly far fretched.

The characters, I hated. I hated all but one, Marsh, because she was the only 'real' character, as in, she had real problems to deal with. Dice was a terribly confusing character, and it was hard to keep up with her "I love Sin, but I have to do something to stop him" thoughts. One minute, she was proclaiming her love to him, the next, she was telling the audience how evil he is, and how she hated him for what he was doing to the town. It was also hard to keep up with the narration, as her thoughts flowed too quickly, and the pacing changed so often that it was hard to get a grasp of. Half the time, the narration made no sense, and I had to go back some pages to try to figure out what I had missed.
Pen, I liked her at the beginning, before she turned into a SLUT. She was a fairly loveable character, she had her quirks, and she was spunky enough. But then the author decided that this character would be better off attempting to have threesomes, giving peep shows to old men in a dirty bar, and even trying to seduce a married man to ruin his marriage. Wow, just wow.
And Sin, what can I say about him? Other than the fact that he is beyond frightening, and I cant see why Dice has fallen for him, nothing. He uses Dice to serve out revenge to the townsfolk of Swoon. He takes her cousin's virginity, knowing that it's devastating poor Dice. He is a sick, twisted, horrible guy. I don't see what Dice sees in him. Also, for a guy born in 1751, his dialogue is frightfully modern. Way off.

Another thing that annoyed me was the overexcessive use of sex, drugs and booze. There were dozens of scenes where the characters are smoking joints, getting drunk, talking about sexual encounters, etc. Whilst I have no issue with those things in general, I'd prefer if they were actually relevant and actually progressed the story. They did nothing to the story. If anything, it showed that the author thinks that every teenager loves to have gratuitous sex, get drunk off their face and smoke copious amounts of dope, snort lines of coke and take ecstacy.
I found it offensive that such a view was so generalised within the teenage population within the novel. Not all teens get high. Not all of them have sex. Not all of them are only interested in getting 'smashed'.

To conclude, I had high hopes for this novel, but found myself being extremely disappointed and revolted. It had potential, but Malkin ruined it with unnecessary sex and drugs and generalizing.

Cover Art: 4
Plot: 1
Characters: 1
Writing: 1
Level of Interest: 1

Total Rating: 1/5