Ghost Hunters Meets Supernatural

If you loved Kami Garcia's Beautiful Creatures series with Margaret Stohl and were worried about what would happen when they decided to take on their own projects, I suggest you pick up this story before you speculate! Unbreakable, the first book in The Legion series is Unstoppable!

When Kennedy walks into her home to find her mother dead, she thinks nothing could possibly turn her life upside down more than that very moment. She was wrong. When her options are to live with her aunt or go to boarding school, she chooses a boarding school as far away as possible, but she never makes it there. Instead, something happens to her that she would never have expected. Her cat tries to kill her. Actually, it is a vengeance spirit inside her cat, but that doesn't make it any less deadly. Kennedy has almost succumbed to the spirit inside her cat when twins burst through her bedroom door and blast the cat. Terrified, Kennedy hides from them and threatens to call the police, but there is something strange with these brothers and their presence in her life. When they insist she is in danger and that they protected her from a spirit with salt bullets (which undoubtedly scared her cat, but didn't kill it), she can't believe such things exist. But how can she deny their existence when one clearly just tried to kill her?

When another spirit attack Kennedy, this time a poltergeist, she can't deny she needs help. Thank goodness the boys didn't go far. Lukas and Jared fill her in on their role in the Legion as each a member of the group of five who inherited their place to defend the world against a demon and his spirit minions. When one member dies, they tap another in to replace them. All five members of the Legion died the same time Kennedy's mother died, creating a completely new (and green) legion. Meanwhile, the demon their ancestors released is hunting them the same way they are hunting him. Kennedy is convinced she isn't part of the Legion, but the others refuse to believe it. They know her mother was the missing member who disappeared off the grid. The problem is, no one told Kennedy and no one trained Kennedy. Now she is in as much danger as the rest of them, but she is also a liability. She could get them hurt with her lack of training just as easily as the spirits could do their work. And they don't need one more thing that could get them killed. 

Kami Garcia really did a phenomenal job with this story. It was like Ghost Hunters meets Supernatural. And if you have watched Supernatural, you know the story with two hunter brothers! Well, Jared and Lukas do NOT disappoint. Jared is your surly brother while Lukas is the friendly brother, but you will find yourself loving both of them equally. Interestingly enough, I didn't connect to Kennedy as much as I loved the twins and the other two members of the Legion, Priest and Alara. Priest was your typical super-tech inventor with a sweet, witty humor and Alara was the surly, hardcore lady who kicked butt first and asked questions later. They were brilliant! It really felt like the Winchesters and their comrades from Supernatural! 

But the story was more than just superb characters. The whole back story about the Legion ties into the Knights Templar and Illuminati in a whole knew twisty, creepy way. I loved the "Da Vinci Code"/"Natural Treasure" kind of hidden clue hunt they had to go through in order to find what they were looking for to finally stop the demon. It added a layer of adventure to the creepiness that topped it off perfectly. Honestly, I am really impressed with the start of this series, and I can even forgive the nutso cliffhanger at the end that left me flipping the last page back and forth praying more would magically appear! This is a great book for any YA readers who like creepy ghost stories and dig some awesome characters!

Dance of Mediocre Shadows

Dancing, like music, can be a spiritual thing, but when the people surrounding get too caught up in it, it can get dangerous. In Yelena Black's Dance of Shadows, Vanessa already knows how dangerous the New York Ballet Academy can be, but she doesn't care. She cares about finding her missing sister.

Vanessa has been accepted to the prestigious New York Ballet Academy, but her parents are obviously nervous about her actually attending since her sister disappeared from the same Academy years ago. Still, they let her go, and she is determined to attend. For Vanessa, ballet is addictive, almost a drug, but there is something even more important at the Academy than dance: answers about her sister's disappearance. 

When she gets there, she realizes there are many dark secrets to the Academy. The lead choreographer, Josef, is ruthless in his control of all the dancers, and it turns out Vanessa's sister isn't the only lead ballerina to disappear. In fact, every girl who was made lead in the Firebird has disappeared, along with some others. But it seems anyone who digs too deep goes missing as well. And when Vanessa is made lead in Firebird as a freshman, she starts to get close to the truth. When a friend of hers goes missing suddenly, the shadows around the studio become all too apparent. Vanessa will not give up on her sister and the other girls, but she may be playing with fire...

Sadly for me, I didn't think this was a stellar story. I was very interested in the ballet angle, the missing girls, etc., but where this story went was particularly odd. But that wasn't the only thing I struggled with. First, the characters weren't well-developed, including Vanessa. They were all very flat for me, and even the love triangle with Zeppelin and Justin was so dry I just didn't particularly care who she ended up with. 

**SPOILERS AHEAD** And even worse for me was the supernatural element. I think the mystery of the missing girls was a great angle, but wouldn't a school be shut down if it lost 13 girls in 20 years, especially with so few kids accepted into the school?? How does that go unnoticed? But even so, the supernatural element was odd. It wasn't particularly interesting for me, and I love supernatural books. Also, the "mystery" was relatively predictable and seriously?? A necrodancer? Oh, boy. That was a stretch. Worse yet is that this is supposed to be a trilogy. As if one demon of the dance wasn't bad enough, now we plan to track down all the evil ballet demon summoners? *END SPOILER*

So, sadly I will most likely not be reading the next book in the trilogy. If I do, it will most likely be a moment of weakness to see where the story leads. I wasn't particularly thrilled with this book and I wish the story was as flawless as the beautiful cover.