Review: Lailah by Nikki Kelly

Lailah by Nikki Kelly

Book One of the Styclar series

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Publication Date: October 7, 2014

Rating: 1 star

Source: ARC sent by the publisher

Summary (from Goodreads):

Over one million Wattpad readers have made Lailah a sensation!

The girl knows she’s different. She doesn’t age. She has no family. She has visions of a past life, but no clear clues as to what she is, or where she comes from. But there is a face in her dreams – a light that breaks through the darkness. She knows his name is Gabriel.

On her way home from work, the girl encounters an injured stranger whose name is Jonah. Soon, she will understand that Jonah belongs to a generation of Vampires that serve even darker forces. Jonah and the few like him, are fighting with help from an unlikely Allie – a rogue Angel, named Gabriel.

In the crossfire between good and evil, love and hate, and life and death, the girl learns her name: Lailah. But when the lines between black and white begin to blur, where in the spectrum will she find her place? And with whom?

Gabriel and Jonah both want to protect her. But Lailah will have to fight her own battle to find out who she truly is.

What I Liked:

Er. Um. Well. Redeeming qualities, have we any to mention for this book? Hmm... NO.

What I Did Not Like:

I'm not entirely sure what you might consider a "spoiler", or how careful I was with avoiding them, so basically read at your own risk.

I can't remember why I picked this one up to begin with. It couldn't have been the summary, because had I read it, I would have been like RED ALERT, LOVE TRIANGLE AHEAD, TURN THE SHIP AROUND. It had to have been peer pressure. There is no way I would have picked this one up otherwise. The summary is awful, the cover is horrendous, and I hate angel-related books. The perfect storm of soooo not-an-Alyssa book.

Right from the start, I had a feeling that I wouldn't like Lailah - excuse me, FRANCESCA. Or Cessie (what the heck is that kind of nickname, it reminds me of Renesmee, ewww). She's pathetic, from the beginning. I cannot get over how AMAZING and POWERFUL she is supposed to be, but she's USELESS! She does nothing, cannot defend herself, or anyone! She just gets hurt A LOT (like, more than Bella Swan), and heals really quickly. Big freaking deal.

As a heroine/female protagonist, OMG, I dislike her so much. Not just because she is useless. But she acts so entitled, like she's entitled to everyone telling her the truth all the time, or entitled to everyone telling her all the details of everything, even though she JUST MET THEM. How is this attractive?! I would find her extremely annoying, and would definitely try to punch her at least once. I'm not even a violent person, but everything about Lailah makes me want to slap her or something.

I haven't even reached the worst parts yet. I seriously cannot stand her decision-making skills. There is one scene that PISSED ME OFF SO MUCH. Jonah, a vampire, drinks her blood (she offered it to him, a perfect stranger). Now he's basically fixated on her. In one scene, he wants check on her shoulder injury... but then he basically takes her shirt off. She is so uncomfortable, and doesn't want him to look at her bare back or whatever, but he does it, she lets him do it. That. Was. Disgusting. He basically assaults her and she knows it's not okay and she lets him do it, get away with it.

Does the author expect me to think that this is sexy, or something? He backs her against a wall, rips off her jacket and cardigan, while she's telling him no and trying to run away from him?! I'd be "okay" with this scene setup if Lailah was resisting, and not resisting but then caving. It's horrible, disgusting, vile. The author made a mess of this scene. You want it to be sexy? Don't have your protagonist trembling in FEAR when you secondary male protagonist undresses her. 

Check out chapter five if you want to see what I mean.

For that matter, I don't like Jonah. I think I sort-of like Gabriel, at least a lot more than I like Jonah, but while I flat-out disliked Jonah, I thought Gabriel was very one-dimensional and under-developed. I WANTED to like him though. He's sweet.

While we're on the subject of "sexy" scenes - so-called "sexy" scenes, let me tell you about this AWFUL love triangle. At first, I was like, okay, Gabriel and Lailah, they have history, they seem to love each other innately, cool. But of course the author has the bit about Jonah drinking Lailah's blood, and Lailah being turned on by his "darkness", and Jonah being turned on by her non-human magic blood. 

I. Hate. Love. Triangles. You know what else I hate? When the female protagonist misinterprets the actions of the male protagonist love interest (Gabriel), and then the FIRST THING SHE DOES is run off and kiss the secondary male protagonist love interest (Jonah). NOT EVEN KIDDING. She sees Hanora force herself on Gabriel (Gabriel was NOT kissing Hanora), and then Lailah goes and assumes that Gabriel is cheating on her, so OBVIOUSLY that gives Lailah a free pass to go mess around with Jonah.

Right. That makes sense. Lailah, I hate you and your twisted, warped idea of logic. Seriously a very stupid human being. If you love Gabriel SOOOO much, you would never do that to him. You would want to know the truth. You wouldn't stoop to that level and cheat on him. Because in the end, Gabriel never cheated on Lailah, but Lailah had ever intention of cheating on him. Okay. Yup. You're a good person.

So, besides a love triangle, a cheating, stupid female protagonist, and assault... what else you got, Nikki Kelly? Oh, not a very good story, that's for sure! I'm sorry, but the storytelling was so choppy and poorly written. Maybe it's Nikki Kelly's "voice", but it's so badly written. Sometimes the tone was formal, sometimes it was full of slang, and it went back and forth and the story in general was choppy. There was no flow to it. I don't know how to describe that, other than the fact that it didn't feel right, and it felt disjointed, as I was reading. 

Also, I was confused from page one to the last page. I didn't really understand what was going on with the vampires and angels and the bad guys. I don't even remember what the bad guys are called. But basically, everyone is after Lailah because her magic blood gave Jonah an energy spurt, and now everyone wants to kill her. Keep in mind, she knew Jonah for about two minutes when she offered up her blood. Hmm...

Don't even get me started on the angel/vampire bit, the light/darkness. So cliche. So unoriginal. So boring. It took so much for me to finish this book... I was bored, I was furious, and I was so irritated by the end. Seriously, could the content at least have been original?! I feel like I don't read too many angel books, because I dislike them, and this book is a great example of why. They're all like the same time over and over and over, down to the overuse of the angel name. Flaunt "Azrael" in my face one more time.

Overall, this book is poorly written, poorly structured, poorly developed. Poor poor poor, and a waste of  my time. I should never have picked it up, but I'm glad I did, because it taught me a lesson in making-sure-I-read-the-summary-before-requesting-the-book-because-DANG. So much dislike.

Would I Recommend It:

NOOOOOOOOO. I don't care how popular it was on Wattpad. Wattpad stories don't usually make it to hardcover publication with a fancy schmancy publisher, and honestly, this book is a good reason why. It needed a lot more development and a healthy dose of originality, in my opinion.

Rating:

1 star. Not continuing with this series. Moving on with my life. 

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