Saturday, July 18, 2009
Darkest Powers Series by Kelley Armstrong
Mood: ^_^Location: On the beanbag, curled up in a corner sipping ice cappuchino
Music: Someday - Do You Know (Boys Over Flowers OST)
Beware of spoilers! -ahem-
Okay, there's this series that I've been obsessing myself over with for the past couple of weeks. It's the Darkest Powers Series by Kelley Armstrong! I mean, when I first read Twilight (I know there's quite a number of people who don't like that book), I was kind of hyped up for the series, but man... this series is SO much better! This series also has some of the same genres like Romance and Supernatural, but more towards my liking.
In Twilight, everyone is described as deathly 'beautiful' and 'gorgeous' which doesn't happen in real life. (Yes yes, I know that the reason is because they're vampires, but really... there's no such thing as being perfect!) In the Darkest Powers, there are a whole range of unique characters, including the heroine, Chloe Saunders, Simon Bae, Liz Delaney, Tori Enright, Rae Rogers and especially, Derek Souza.
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The Summoning (1st book of the series)
Summary: This is about a girl named, Chloe Saunders, who attends the theater program at her special art school in Buffalo. She aspires to become a movie director due to her deep interest of movies, but one day, everything changed when she started to see ghosts and they see her. Thinking that she is 'ill', Chloe finds herself dumped at a group home called the Lyle House, where a group of teenagers stay. But during her stay, Chloe realizes that her roommates are not what they appear to be and decides to unearth the secrets that have been buried at Lyle House.Here's my view on the main characters:
Chloe Saunders: A 15 year old girl who is short in nature (5ft) with shoulder-length strawberry blond hair with red highlights. Chloe has a deep interest in movies and hates being mistaken for being younger than she really is. At Lyle House, Chloe is diagnosed as a shizophrenic (someone who sees things that aren't there), but in reality, she is a necromancer who can raise and see the dead. Chloe was unwilling to accept the fact that she was a necromancer, but Derek Souza, one of the other teenagers staying at Lyle House forces her to. Chloe gets along well with Rae Rogers and Simon Bae, who the book has hinted that she has some feelings towards.
Derek Souza: A 16 year old guy who is described to be extremely tall (6 feet something) with shoulders as wide as the door. He has an acne problem, which Chloe often states in The Summoning, refering him to the 'Before' picture in an acne commercial. Derek is Simon's foster brother, who came to live with him at a young age, resulting for the two of them to become quite close. Derek is very quiet by nature and has startled Chloe on many occasions, causing her to fear and dislike him. He has proven to have enormous strength when Chloe finds out from reading his file that he had once thrown someone against the wall (to protect his brother), resulting in a fatal injury. It is discovered near the end of the book that Derek is a werewolf, who has not fully transformed into one as of yet.
Simon Bae: A 15 year old guy who is Derek's foster brother. He is described as a charming, good-looking guy that is part Korean and part Swedish. He has dark blond spiky hair and is shorter than his brother. Tori Enright, one of the teenagers staying at Lyle House, has a deep interest in him, though it appears to be one-sided. Simon is quite athletic and enjoys a variety of sports. It is found out near the middle of the book that Simon is a novice-sorcerer and can project mist and levitation spells. Before he and Derek landed in Lyle House, it is learned that Simon had been cornered by a group of guys who had something against Vietnamese, which Simon shoots back that he wasn't and that he was Korean, which angers them. Just when they were about to pull a knife on him, Simon was saved by Derek, who scared off the offenders and threw the one with the knife against the wall. Chloe seems to have some feelings for Simon.
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I like Derek A LOT! Sure, he isn't as 'good-looking' as Simon, from what Chloe says, but I think that his character is rather unique. He is rather blunt and is very quiet. Derek doesn't open up to anyone but his adoptive father and his brother, that is, until Chloe comes along. Though the two of them were at odds for the majority of the first book, they become much closer in the second and is hinted that Derek may have developed some feelings for Chloe, though Chloe is still romantically interested in Simon.
I hope that in the third book, Derek and Chloe will get together after all they have been through. Though Chloe claims that she likes Simon and not Derek, I think that she knows Derek a lot better with the experiences that they have been through.
The first book was released in July 2008 while the second, The Awakening, was released near the end of April 2009. The third and last in the triology, The Reckoning has been marked to be published by May 2010. So, if you haven't read this book, GO READ IT NOW!
