Pulse {ARC review} *

Pulse by Kailin Gow

- paranormal, YA -

reviewed by Tara SG

received for review via Traveling ARC Tours

Book Order (Pulse)

1. Pulse *
2. Life’s Blood
3. Blood Burned

Links

Amazon : paperback / eBook (24 reviews : 3.5 avg)

Add To Your GoodReads TBR List (94 ratings : 3.89 avg)

In Six Words

I think I completely missed something

Why did I read this? And am I glad I did?

I came across this via the tour site and it sounded interesting enough to give it a try. I would not have finished this book if it wasn’t a tour book. However, I seem to be in the extreme minority. Pulse has fairly high ratings on both GoodReads and Amazon, which leaves me feeling like I missed something. The characters did not capture my attention and that is the number one thing I look for in a book. But my biggest issue was feeling like I was reading a Vampire Diaries ripoff.

All that being said, there were some points that had potential had they been the focus of the story. I won’t be sticking with the series long enough to see if any of them pan out.

Brief Summary

17 year-old Kalina didn’t know her boyfriend was a vampire until the night he died of a freak accident. She didn’t know he came from a long line of vampires until the night she was visited by his half-brothers Jaegar and Stuart Greystone. There were a lot of secrets her boyfriend didn’t tell her. Now she must discover them in order to keep alive. But having two half-brothers vampires around had just gotten interesting.

- via GoodReads.com

Plot/Pacing/Writing Style

First of all, the summary is inaccurate. She doesn’t find out he is a vampire after his freak accident. She finds out when his half-brothers tell her. The plot was a little too “which one will she choose” that was too young for me. If I were a teen, this may have held my interest much easier.

I think the mythology behind how the Vampire Wine is created was unique and had it been more of a focus, I would have been far more interested in the story.

Characters

Kalina wasn’t terrible. She took things FAR too easily and fell for her recently deceased boyfriend’s brothers way too fast. Otherwise she seemed tough and kinda funny.

My biggest issue with the book was the brothers. One was the “good guy” who didn’t feed from unwilling humans (or humans at all if he could help it) and wanted to fall in love with Kalina. The other was the “bad guy” who embraced his vampire nature and reluctantly fell in love with Kalina due to her being able to hold her own against him. Sound familiar? Yeah, it did to me too.

Recommendations

I personally can’t recommend this. If it sounds like the type of book you would normally read maybe check out some of the reviews on Amazon or GoodReads to get an idea of what other people liked about it.