by M. Beth Bloom
Genre: young adult paranormal romance
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication date: July 24th 2012
Pages: 400 (paperback)
Source: ARC from publisher via Edelweiss
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Quinlan Lacey's life is a red carpet of weird fashions, hip bands, random parties, and chilling by the pool with her on-and-off BFF Libby. There's also her boring job (minimum wage), a crushed-out coworker (way too interested), her summer plans (nada), and her parents (totally clueless). Then one night she meets gorgeous James, and Quinn's whole world turns crazy, Technicolor, 3-D, fireworks, whatever.
But with good comes bad and unfortunately, Quinn's new romance brings with it some majorly evil baggage. Now, to make things right, she has to do a lot of things wrong (breaking and entering, kidnapping, lying, you name it).
There's normal, and then there's paranormal, and neither are Quinlan's cup of Diet Coke. Staying sane, cool, in love, and alive isn't so easy breezy.
This one gets the weirdest book of the year award, hands down. Definitely not in a good way. The blurb made me think that it was going to be an amazing witty read- but I was proved otherwise.
Drain You was like a freaky Gossip Girl-Twilight crossover fanfiction. Everyone was shiny and fabulous and gorgeous and treated everyone like shit, and the girls couldn't live without their oh-so hunky but dangerous vampire boyfies. The protag, Quinn, was the worst. She was annoying, self-centered, inconsiderate- pretty much like Jenny Humphrey in her rebel chick phase. I think the author wanted her to be this cool unique lead, but it sort of came out too strong. I totally dig that Quinn has her own weird casual way of dressing up- but I didn't have to read something along the lines of 'i put on whatever because meh i don't really care' EVERY SINGLE TIME. And get this- Quinn was prepared to let herself, her best dude friend, and her entire family die because of one hot dead guy that she met less than a month ago. WHAT?!
Another thing, the book was very anti-climatic and repetitive. There wasn't any tension, and I didn't really 'feel' the climax. When I reached that part of the book, I was like, "That was it? Oh... okay." Character development was pretty much nonexistent. All of them were pretty much one-dimensional. And another thing, it was very very predictable. I was bored most of the time and it drained the life out of me. (geddit? ok..)
Now don't get me wrong, I didn't completely hate this book. There were good parts once in a while, and Quinn's sarcastic tone made me laugh quite a bit. That's probably her only redeeming factor though. The author probably dissecting a modern teenager's brain and analyzed every aspect of it because Quinn's character voice really came out and it was 100% accurate.
And I loved the normal characters; the in-the-background personalities that Quinn used and recycled: Dead dude's sister, Quinn's sweet parents, and even sweeter guy bestiebud. I felt sorry for them, actually- they didn't deserve to get treated like crap. Another thing that I liked about this book was the writing style- it was snarky and sarcastic- but straight to the point. I wouldn't mind reading another book by the same author.
This book was an okay read for me. It's not exactly my cup of tea, but if you're a lover of things like
twilight and gossip girl, and you want them in one whole package- this is the book for you.
THE NUB AND GIST: 2.5 STARS
