Review: Haven by Kristi Cook

Feb 25, 2011 by shanyn

Title: Haven
Hardcover, 416 pages
Author: Kristi Cook
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: February 22, 2011
Source: Publisher
Buy: Amazon

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Book Summary:
One month into her junior year, sixteen-year-old Violet McKenna transfers to the Winterhaven School in New York’s Hudson Valley, inexplicably drawn to the boarding school with high hopes. Leaving Atlanta behind, she’s looking forward to a fresh start–a new school, and new classmates who will not know her deepest, darkest secret, the one she’s tried to hide all her life: strange, foreboding visions of the future.

But Winterhaven has secrets of its own, secrets that run far deeper than Violet’s. Everyone there–every student, every teacher–has psychic abilities, ‘gifts and talents,’ they like to call them. Once the initial shock of discovery wears off, Violet realizes that the school is a safe haven for people like her. Soon, Violet has a new circle of friends, a new life, and maybe even a boyfriend–Aidan Gray, perhaps the smartest, hottest guy at Winterhaven.

Only there’s more to Aidan than meets the eye–much, much more. And once she learns the horrible truth, there’s no turning back from her destiny. Their destiny. Together, Violet and Aidan must face a common enemy–if only they can do so without destroying each other first.

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Review:
Oh, Haven. Haven Haven Haven.

The beginning of the book sucked me in pretty quickly. Boarding school? YES PLEASE! (I’m easily amused.) Violet packs up, ships off, and tries to find her place at the new school.

The middle of the book I was laughing at some things that were definitely not meant to be funny. Violet figures out some things about her school, and herself, and her friends… and then dialogue ensues that is… well… not my cup of tea, we’ll say. The middle of this book definitely reminded me of Twilight, and this is not something I have ever said before because I get really annoyed when someone tries to sell me something by saying it’s “THE NEXT TWILIGHT” or something like that. But honestly, the similarities in this one are legit.

The last bit of the book? Stamp of approval, for the most part. Once I kind of quickly read through the middle part (normally I would have put the book down at this point but I was reading very quickly and decided to give the rest a chance) and got to the end, Violet and Aiden and the rest of them got slightly more interesting, and there was an actual purpose and mission.

So, my general consensus is that Haven was okay. Had the middle not been a total flop for me it would have fared a lot better, but I really couldn’t get past some of the things that were said between the characters. I’m being purposely vague here so that if you are intrigued enough to read that I don’t ruin anything for you (but if you want specific examples you can tweet me)

Best for those that are totally into paranormal, and especially paranormal that makes a relationship more complicated because of something having to do with who or what someone is.

Buy: Amazon

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