Review: Daughter of Chaos by Jen McConnel

Daughter of Chaos by Jen McConnel
Publisher: Month9Books
Release Date: March 25, 2014

Witches must choose the path they will follow, and Darlena Agara is no exception. She’s been putting it off long enough, and in her case, ignoring it has not made it go away. In a moment of frustration, Darlena chooses to follow Red Magic, figuring she had outsmarted the powers that be, since there’s no such thing as Red Magic. But alas, Darlena’s wrong (again) and she becomes a newly declared Red Witch.

Her friends are shocked and her parents horrified by the choice Darlena has made. As a Red Witch, she now governs one third of the world’s chaos. She is the walking personification of pandemonium, turmoil, and bedlam, just as the patrons of Red Magic would have it to be.

But Darlena believes there must be more to Red Magic than chaos and destruction, and she sets out on a journey to achieve balance. Only doing so puts her at odds with the dark goddess Hecate, who simply will not allow Darlena to quit. She encourages Darlena to embrace who and what she is and to leave good magic to the good witches. If only Darlena could, life would be simple, and she would not be the Daughter of Chaos.

My Thoughts:
This book and I have a love/hate relationship.  There were a few things that I loved, but there were a lot of things that just didn't work at all for me and I am left feeling kinda ho hum about it all. 

Darlena is a witch and when the time comes for her to declare a path for her studies she chooses Red thinking that the made up path will give her time to figure out what she really wants to do.  Unfortunately for her Red is real and not only is real but very dangerous.  Now she is front and center in a battle with the most powerful witch Hecates and hardly anybody on her side.  Darlena must figure out how to control her new magic and also stay alive without killing anybody else.

This story really had great promise.  I loved the beginning and I thought wow this is going to be good.  I love Greek myth and so I was thrilled with all the myth that was sure ot come my way.  After the first chapter though things kinda fell flat.  Darlena wasted more time and energy hoping that everything was a dream and would just go away.  I wanted her to fight for answers and learn what she needed to learn.  Basically just own what she chose and make it work for her even if she had to stand up to all the big bad goddesses. 

Unfortunately she didn't do this and the story felt like a lot of filler.  We would get glimpses of this chaos causing magic, but that was really only in the first few chapters.  The majority of the story centered around Darlena trying to get her ex boyfriend to love her and trying to make everything just disappear.  Even when the story would finally switch back to magic I wasn't very impressed. The things that Darlena did I wouldn't say were chaos.  Two things she chose to do stopped chaos, but all the practicing she did was really just ordinary magic that her parents could do.  I didn't understand what made her magic different from any others especially after it was revealed others could use some of the same powers only she was supposed to be able to use.

I wasn't fond of the romance either.  Justin was fine as the love interest but it all just didn't fit.  I guess it was just the timing of it all.  It took up too much of the story and I honestly screamed at Darlena for what she did mid way through the book..  What she did was unforgivable in my book and I was mad at her for going that far. 

I think though that this might have worked if the story was more of a contemporary novel.  If you drop all the magic aspects you have a romance that is angsty, a female lead that needs help solving a life changing puzzle, a best friend who her parents don't approve of, and a crazy family that always wants something from her.  See sounds contemporary right?  I might have enjoyed it if it were written that way but as it is I just wasn't that into it.

Oh and one more thing her parents! I am so sick of all these parents just running for their lives and letting their teenagers save them.  My gawd you are supposed to protect your children at all costs don't run!  I would have preferred for her parents to die protecting her than see them just turn and run.  I had a few problems with her parents but this was my main one. 

I am going with 2 snowflakes...1 for the first chapter and all its creepiness and 1 for the fun myth that was woven throughout the story.

2 snowflakes