Marked By Books: Review of My Soul to Keep by Rachel Vincent

Life kinda sucks sometimes. You think that everything is going wonderfully, and then BAM! The cosmic mojo of the universe gives you a huge punch in the face. And why does this aforementioned mojo have such a mean streak? I wish I knew.

This book is the sucker punch that sets off a whole train of unfortunate events in the novels to come. Some may be good, some may be very, very bad, but all of them are going to cause a whole lot of commotion at one point or another.

My Soul to Keep is the game changer in the Soul Screamers universe, and after this book, nothing will ever be the same.

Kaylee has one addiction: her very hot, very popular boyfriend, Nash. A banshee like Kaylee, Nash understands her like no one else. Nothing can come between them.

Until something does.

Demon breath. No, not the toothpaste-challenged kind. The Netherworld kind. The kind that really can kill you. Somehow the super-addictive substance has made its way to the human world. But how? Kaylee and Nash have to cut off the source and protect their friends--one of whom is already hooked.

And so is someone else...

And so it begins. When I first started re-reading this series, I thought that there was no way I could possibly fall in love with Nash all over again, knowing what he would do to Kaylee. It would be impossible that he could be able to tear my heart out one more time while I sat there seething against the injustice of it all. Needless to say, I was wrong.

Nash seems to have a certain effect on people. Even with all of the evidence against him staring you in the face, you don't want to believe that he would ever do something wrong. He does love Kaylee, that much is obvious, but he's no longer her knight in shining armor. He got knocked off of his horse, and he won't be coming back up again without a few dents. Nash isn't nearly as perfect as everyone seems to expect him to be, and he's been dealt one of the worst hands so far. To say that he had no power to fight fate wouldn't be true at all, but now I've come to understand his circumstance a little better. I could never forgive him for the part he played, but at least my boiling hatred has cooled down to a passionate dislike the second time around.

The fact that I feel any emotion so strongly towards these characters is an immense pat on the back for Rachel Vincent. You can't possibly expect to like everyone, that would make the novel unrealistic, but nothing is worse than complete indifference. A lack of feeling for anyone means that they take up useless space on a page that could have been better spent. Luckily, the author never allows this to happen. Whether it's the new strength I see growing in Tod, sympathy for Alec's situation, or even distaste for Sophie the Ice Queen, everyone plays a deep enough role to mean something to the reader. Everybody and everything that happens in this book is important. Even if at times you just want to throw it against the wall, at least it makes you feel something, which is as much as I could ever ask out of any of the books I read.