Review: Nightstruck by Jenna Black

Nightstruck by Jenna Black
Publisher: Tor Teen
Release Date: April 5th, 2016
Purchase: Amazon

The start of a paranormal horror series from Glimmerglass author Jenna Black.

The night is the enemy, and the city of Philadelphia is its deadliest weapon.

Becket is an ordinary teenage girl, wrestling with the upheaval of her parents' divorce. Her biggest problems to date have been choosing which colleges to apply to, living up to her parents' ambitious expectations of her, and fighting her secret crush on her best friend's boyfriend. That all changes the night she tries to save an innocent life and everything goes horribly wrong.

Becket has been tricked into opening a door between worlds. As dark magic trickles into Philadelphia, strange creatures roam the streets and inanimate objects come to life, all of them bloodthirsty and terrifying. The city returns to normal when the sun rises each morning. The moment the sun sets, most citizens shut themselves in their houses and stay there no matter what they hear.

The magic is openly hostile to most mortals, but there are some it seems to covet, trying to lure them out into the night. While Becket struggles to protect her friends and family from predatory creatures of the night, she is constantly tempted to shrug off her responsibilities and join them.

My thoughts:
I am incredibly frustrated by this book.  The story was a really interesting one, but the main character Becket is insanely annoying and really killed this story for me.

The story opens up really strong and I liked the whole creepy factor that the author chose to go with.  Was it original not really, but her spin was great and I found I liked it.  That all changed when Becket became the main focus.  Her constant "I'm not good enough, nobody will ever like me" grated on my nerves almost from the get go.  I like stronger characters and this story deserved a stronger character.  It needed it honestly.  She was a weak minded person who didn't fight.  I kept screaming at my Kindle FIGHT!!  She never did.  Even in the end she never fought and I just can't forgive her for what she did.

I also had a HUGE problem with Piper, Becket's so called best friend.  How Becket could ever call Piper that is beyond me.  This girl was rude, self-absorbed, and downright mean.  If you have to schedule time to be with your best friend months in advance because she is too busy with her other friends she is not a friend to you. I have read several books where the BF is the best person ever, but I hated Piper. Yes I said hated.  Every time she would come into the picture I groaned and just wanted to hit her.  And this shows again that Becket wasn't a strong character because she made up excuses for Piper and just let her walk all over her. It was painful to see and I wish Becket would have kicked her to the curb.

The romance was okay.  I would have liked to have seen a certain someone profess their feelings out loud.  Instead I got to see Becket agonize over every single signal and it got annoying. I promise I really tried to cut her some slack as I was the overly shy nerdy in my high school days, but I couldn't look past all of it.

What stinks is that I loved the story.  The small glimpses we get to see I loved.  It was dark and crazy and felt like The Purge on magic steroids.  I would have loved to have seen more development in the overall world.  I wanted the hows and whys and way more details than we were given. I think if the author had chosen to focus more on the dark story and less on the teenage angst this would have been a huge hit for me.  I will read the next installment because even though I'm really angry the cliffhanger ending did reel me in.  GAH!  I really hate when that happens, but it did and all I can hope for is that we get to see more of the magical side of things and I hope I get to see a stronger Becket.

A side note I'm beyond furious at what Becket's dad did.  I can't say much because its a huge spoiler, but man I have never been madder at a parent in my lifetime of reading.  She didn't deserve what he did and for that I have to give her a few sympathy points.

2.5 snowflakes