Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Review: Branded by Keary Taylor

Jessica's had the nightmares for as long as she can remember. Nightmares of being judged for people who have died, of being branded by the angels. Her friends and family think she's a crazy because of it all. Yet she carries the mark of the condemned, seared into the back of her neck, and hides it and herself away from the world.

But when two men she can't ignore enter her life everything changes, including the nightmares. The two of them couldn't be more different. She will do anything to be with one of them. Even tell him the truth about angels, why she never sleeps, and the scar on the back of her neck. But one of the two has set events into motion what will pull her toward her own judgment and turn her into the object of her greatest fear.





Title: Branded
Series: Fall of Angels #1
Published: March 4th 2010 by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform 
ISBN: 1450572375 (ISBN13: 9781450572378)
Barnes&Noble|Amazon

This is another free book by an independent author I had downloaded in the Kindle Store. The story line was about angels was creative. In this world, angels weren't beautiful or perfect, but instead, they were scary beings who would decide your fate after death.

I must admit the characters weren't memorable. Twenty year old Jessica Bailey is the main character of this book, and she's definitely had plenty of problems in her life. Her mom had written her off as psycho and planned to send her to a crazy house before she ran away to live on her own. (Isn't that illegal when you're sixteen?) She had dreams where she would stand trial as different people and they would be branded to go to hell or go to heaven, so she didn't get much sleep. The twist is, if the person was branded, Jessica would wake up screaming with a brand on her back. That's got to hurt.

The book went downhill after Alex was introduced. I really didn't like the fact Alex, her love interest, and Jessica fall in love quickly and their relationship moves fast. It was practically love at first sight, which is definitely unrealistic. Alex also happened to be the perfect guy with tons of money, he works with children in Africa, he's hot with a perfect body, and he can cook. There was never a moment when he felt "real" to me and was basically a cookie cutout. Within a week of knowing each other, if Jessica wasn't with him for like...two seconds, she would freak. I found that weird considering she was a hermit with no social contact living in an old couple's home as their caretaker, though they were never home. Sad they had more of a social life than she did! The only times she did go out was to take care of her neighbor, Sal, who was abused during her marriage and that did all sorts of things to her head. The biggest problem in this book was it being predictable. As soon as a character was introduced you could tell who was going to be the problem, and that actually led to a pretty poorly-executed love triangle. There was never the question of who she was going to choose since there was only one guy she would ever think about.

To end on a good note, this book did show the quality of sacrifice. Even though Alex had only known Jessica for a short period of time, at the end of the book he makes a huge sacrifice for her, and vice versa, Jessica was planning on doing whatever was necessary in order to keep her friends and family safe. I thought the book was decent, it had interesting moments, and it's worth reading whenever you have a chance. Oh, and the cover was pretty cool.

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” -Jane Austen
Book Nerd and Proud,
C.J.

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