Book # 23: Swoon

Title: Swoon

Author: Nina Malkin

Date started reading: March 8, 2013
Date finished reading: March 13, 2013

Publish date: May 2009
ISBN: 978-1416974345
Number of pages: 432

Official summary: "Torn from her native New York City and dumped in the land of cookie-cutter preps, Candice is resigned to her posh, dull fate. Nothing ever happens in Swoon, Connecticut ... until Dice’s perfect, privileged cousin Penelope nearly dies in a fall from an old tree and her spirit intertwines with that of a ghost. His name? Sinclair Youngblood Powers. His mission? Revenge. And while Pen is oblivious to the possession, Dice is all too aware of Sin. She’s intensely drawn to him — but not at all crazy about the havoc he’s wreaking. Determined to exorcise the demon, Dice accidentally sets Sin loose, gives him flesh, makes him formidable. Now she must destroy an even more potent — and irresistible — adversary before the whole town succumbs to Sin’s will. Only trouble is, she’s in love with him." (http://www.ninamalkin.com)

Official book trailer:

How I obtained the book: Got through PaperBackSwap.com

My commentary:

• I was really unhappy with the amount of sexual content and drug/alcohol use in this book. I don't think that's at all appropriate for a young adult novel... even if real life is sometimes like that. It was hard to get into the supernatural storyline when it kept having all sorts of cheesy sexual stuff. The author writes on her website that she writes "about teenagers" not "for teenagers." I guess I get that, but I don't feel like reading some of the stuff in this book was even appropriate for me, and I'm in my 30's. 
• In the book, Sinclair becomes a golem (an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter) once Dice accidentally brings his ghost to life. I kept thinking about how there was a golem on a recent episode of the TV show "Supernatural," which made it hard to picture Sinclair as a sexy hot young man when "Supernatural" had a giant, extremely strong, unattractive man as its golem. This is what I kept seeing in my head:

Memorable quotes:

• "Love at first sight must be glorious. I wouldn’t know, since at first there was no sight. Smell, yeah — the tangy, salty scent of horses. Plenty of other sensations too. But I’ll get to that. The point I want to make up front is that by the time I laid eyes on Sinclair Youngblood Powers — in the flesh, that is — I was already in love with him. Nothing could change that. Not even the fact that he was dead." ~ Dice
• “The best listeners listen between the lines.”  
• “You are my life, but you are not my purpose.” 
• “I took Sin on faith, but if faith were money, fools would be billionaires.”  
• “You learn about fight or flight, but no one ever mentions the third alliterative option -- freeze.” 

Buy on Amazon.com: Swoon