Nightshade by Andrea Cremer

There has been a lot of buzz in the book blog world about Nightshade so I decided to check it out for myself. Here is the summary from Amazon.com

“Werewolves Ren and Calla—the young alpha male and female of two carefully controlled packs—are constantly sparring yet clearly attracted to each other. The plans for their impending union, designed to create a new pack, are upset by the arrival of Shay, a human man, and Calla risks her own safety and the future of her new pack by falling both in love and lust with him.”

I’m afraid that Nightshade didn’t live up to a lot of the hype for me. I did find it to be a great read in the beginning. However, I became frustrated with the virginal stereotypes and the place of women in this world. I realize that it is all about Calla finding her way and breaking free but it became difficult for me personally to swallow in the mean time. I had to walk away from the book at times because I would get so mad at something she had allowed or had decided to accept.

With that said I still enjoyed about ¾ of the book. When I got to the end it did leave me wondering where the rest of the story was….. I felt like things ended all of the sudden with little to no resolution. I would have liked a bit more of a resolution than what happened. I understand the need for a cliffhanger I just would have liked to see at least one or two of the loose ends tied up.

With that said, I do admire the strength that Calla is given in the writing and I did enjoy the style the writing was done with. I feel that the details really allowed me to see and hear what was going on in the story. The attention given to the way in which words were spoken in the story really brought the reader into the world of Nightshade.

I also really admired Shay’s character. He questions the way things are but not in an overtly rebellious way. Shay wants to make educated decisions and is able to quote philosophers and support his beliefs. He doesn’t take things at face value and I found that to be admirable in him.

Overall I give Nightshade a 3/5. It was well written and had a really good story. However, there were several things that I personally struggled with getting past while reading this story.