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

By now you guys have probably noticed how obsessed I am with Rachel Vincent's Soul Screamers series. To be honest, this was my least favorite book in the series, but that doesn't mean I didn't like it. I did. It just...... frustrated me. Very much so. Kaylee's life is really being turned around in this book, and the first time I read this book, I didn't like it one bit. I've always been a huge supporter of Kaylee, and I was royally ticked off that things never seem to go her way.

If that is what happened to you too, do not give up. Because things get so much better. You know, "the sun will come out tomorrow" and all that jazz. Whatever pain and suffering goes down in this book, trust me, it is all completely worth it.

Trying to work things out with Nash—her maybe boyfriend—is hard enough for Kaylee Cavanaugh. She can't just pretend nothing happened. But "complicated" doesn't even begin to describe their relationship when his ex-girlfriend transfers to their school, determined to take Nash back.

See, Sabine isn't just an ordinary girl. She's a mara, the living personification of a nightmare. She can read people's fears—and craft them into nightmares while her victims sleep. Feeding from human fear is how she survives.

And Sabine isn't above scaring Kaylee and the entire school to death to get whatever—and whoever—she wants.

This book has presented me with a bit of a problem. While I loved all of the new elements introduced into the story, namely the world's most determined mara, it frustrated me so much that I almost had to throw the book against the wall a few times. Almost. I could never bring myself to put the book down because I just had to find out what happened next. Of course, I already knew, considering this is a reread, but everyone changes so much in this book that it feels like I'm finally rediscovering the characters that I knew from after If I Die.

There are some new things that I was glad to see had slipped through the cracks the first time around. I began to notice the little details that I had missed before, like who is always there for Kaylee when she needs them, and who is definitely… not. Seemingly insignificant changes in the way certain people look at her – insignificant because they never really mattered until later on in the series. That doesn't mean that they weren't noticed, just that there were more important things going on at the moment, so they were overlooked.

And there was so much going on in this book. Just because Kaylee was going through a bit of a rough patch in the romance department, doesn't mean that there won't be some world, or at least Texas, threatening dilemma for her to solve.

Then there's Sabine. The first time through this book, I hated her for everything she was and everything she did to Kaylee. It just wasn't fair. She had been through so much already and she still felt responsible for saving the world with her own two hands. Now there's a Nightmare with abandonment issues determined to pry her maybe-boyfriend from her cold, dead hands. The universe was tragically out of balance.

This time, I looked at it in a whole different way. After reading the short stories from Sabine's point of view, "Neiderwald" and "Fearless," I can completely understand why she's not willing to play fair. She never meant to hurt Kaylee – in fact, on many occasions she called her a friend – it's just that she was the one thing standing in the way of her life. And Nash was her life; he was everything she needed to keep going on, and once he left, she had nothing.

It doesn't take a genius to see that Kaylee and Nash are no longer perfect for each other. Kaylee doesn't need Nash like Sabine does, at least not any more. Whether she likes it or not, he has changed, and the Nash that she fell in love with is no more.

But she is not alone. To take the place of her fallen hero is another, one that I have been very glad to see. Whether or not he will stay is one question, but without a doubt, he will be causing quite a bit of trouble, which is why we love him oh so very much.