Currently Reading The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong...

...and it is dull, dull, dull. I feel bad saying that because I liked the Darkest Powers series so much and was so looking forward to reading this book, but it's true. I feel like nothing much happened until page 237, and that every time Maya gets close to finding something interesting, or at least reacting in some interesting way to something potentially interesting, she backs off. I'm into the late 200's now and it's finally staring to pick up, but I feel almost like Kelley picked the wrong character to follow. You see, there's this other girl, a peripheral character really, who is actually doing stuff and digging around and asking questions, and I'm left wondering, "Why aren't I reading about her?"
So, you can count this as my review because I don't feel like sitting down and racking my brain over what this was really saying1 and how I felt about the flow2 and the characters3 and the story4, yet I still wanted to say something about this book because I'd been looking forward to reading it so much.
I'll admit that the problem might not lie solely with the book, though; it might also be that I'm a bit emotionally shell shocked after losing my cat5 and I can't seem to get into it as fully as I'd like. With that in mind, I will be reading the second book when it comes out and judging from there whether I'll read the rest of this series. My hope is that this series will pick up in book two, because I do like this world and her writing style, but I'm chalking The Gathering up as a fail, for whatever reason.

i am
zombie girrl
& this was
a snooze fest
that i'm going
to write off as
a bad start

footnotes___________________________________________________________________
1. Nothing much, as far as I can tell.
2. It's slooooooow.
3. I actually really like the characters, especially Maya and Daniel and the dynamic between them. It's one of those friendships that you are either blessed to have, or wish you had.
4. So much untapped potential! So many mishandled clues! So much that the characters seem to know without knowing what they know... if that makes any sense. Like, weird things happen to the characters and they brush it off as being a normal "personal quirk" or talent that some people have.
5. She's not dead, so please don't send condolences, but she isn't coming back. Short story: she wasn't as much of a stray as I thought and her family finally showed up to take her "home". Honestly, after a year and half, I think they just should've let sleeping dogs, or contented cats, lie. I miss her6.
6. *Understatement of the year*