Book Review: Unbreakable

I never believed in ghosts. Until one tried to kill me.

When Kennedy Waters finds her mother dead, her world begins to unravel. She doesn’t know that paranormal forces in a much darker world are the ones pulling the strings. Not until identical twins Jared and Lukas Lockhart break into Kennedy’s room and destroy a dangerous spirit sent to kill her. The brothers reveal that her mother was part of an ancient secret society responsible for protecting the world from a vengeful demon — a society whose five members were all murdered on the same night.

Now Kennedy has to take her mother’s place in the Legion if she wants to uncover the truth and stay alive. Along with new Legion members Priest and Alara, the teens race to find the only weapon that might be able to destroy the demon — battling the deadly spirits he controls every step of the way.  Quoted from Goodreads

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This is the perfect book for Halloween . . . well depending on how you look at the holiday.  I'll be honest, I've read enough books about witches and vampires to fill October several times over with book reviews, so maybe paranormal isn't that special.  Still, when asking myself what to read this week, this is the book I chose. Why?  I'm going with the whole creepy factor.  Sure, I read tons of books with the right paranormal creature, but thanks to Twilight, most of those are more adventures /romance and not horror. This book, while it does have its share of romance and adventure, also has those eerie, suspenseful moments the scream Halloween thanks to one particularly nasty demon and a plethora of angry ghosts.

We start with Kennedy and her unfortunate trip to a graveyard.  Here we also encounter her our first ghost . . . and the story is off.  The best part of this book is its creepy factor.  It's not gross, blood and guts everywhere horror.  Instead it's vengeful spirits and ghosts throwing knives at your or walling you up in the basement Cask of Amontillado style, and for me, it's exactly what I wanted.

As for the characters, I actually enjoyed Kennedy.  She absolutely lacks self confidence and knows she's the weakest member of the team, but I actually found her to be pretty realistic.  I think her character has a lot of potential, and I enjoyed her need to use her skills to help no matter how small they might be.  I also really liked her desire to be part of a group.  It's a feeling a lot of teens can relate to (and everybody else, really) and completely true to what happened to her character.

As for the romance, I never really thought of it as a love triangle. There was always one clear winner, and while the other was friendly and maybe showed a little interest, it never progressed into the dreaded triangle realm.  I won't go into too many specifics in case you do actually buy into the whole triangle thing, but I also thought he was exactly what Kennedy needed.  Not in an obvious way at first, but I totally saw it.

There are also some good friendships in the book.  While running away and worrying her aunt really weren't probably the best choices, I understand Kennedy's reasoning behind it.  I did admire her devotion to her friends, both the one she left behind and the new ones she makes.   Plus, I like Kami Garcia's writing.  I loved Beautiful Creatures, and while Beautiful Darkness was rather a let down, the series ended up redeeming itself in the last two books. 

All in all this is a fun, creepy, nail-biter of a Halloween read.  It was just what I was looking for this time of year.  Honestly, I was surprised how much I liked it. I'm going to round it up to a lovely 4 stars.  Now I'm just hoping the next book in the series doesn't pull a Beautiful Darkness and instead keeps up the eerie intensity of Unbreakable.