Review: Shattered Souls by Mary Lindsey

Title: Shattered Souls

Author: Mary Lindsey

Format: Hardcover ($17.99 US)

Relationship Status: married to Hayden Casey

(According to this picture, we are now legally married. See the ring on top of it?)

A thrilling debut story of death, love, destiny and dangerLenzi hears voices and has visions - gravestones, floods, a boy with steel gray eyes. Her boyfriend, Zak, can't help, and everything keeps getting louder and more intense. Then Lenzi meets Alden, the boy from her dreams, who reveals that she's a reincarnated Speaker - someone who can talk to and help lost souls - and that he has been her Protector for centuries.
Now Lenzi must choose between her life with Zak and the life she is destined to lead with Alden. But time is running out: a malevolent spirit is out to destroy Lenzi, and he will kill her if she doesn't make a decision soon.

 Mary Lindsey, let me just tell you right now: I LOVED YOUR BOOK WITH THE PASSION OF A MILLION BURNING SUNS. In fact, I got off the airplane two hours later with a snot-covered face due to the burning romance I felt inside. Some YA books are like "they're in love" and you're supposed to believe it. That is not the case this time around, ladies and gents. The romance in Shattered Souls is totally believable, you know, just like the Internet. (I kid, I kid.) There's actually foundation for it, which sets Shattered Souls miles above the rest of the YA Lit Marathon we're all hopelessly engaged in lately.

I'm hesitant to admit that in the beginning of the book, I didn't believe it. Lenzi was in the bathroom, breaking down, hearing voices. Oh, Allah, please not this again. How many times has the hearing-voices plot line been terribly regurgitated? Once I'd cleared that scene, I lowered my expectations. I was going to get the best possible reading experience from this book. I spent my dang Christmas money on it, for one, and I wasn't about to grind $17.99 up in the garbage disposal. The good news is that even if I would've raised my expectations up to as high as I could reach, my mind still would've been blown. See, Shattered Souls unfolds naturally. It's not forced, it's not, for lack of a better word, unnatural, what Lenzi is experiencing. You can tell it's what Lenzi wants. It's not what Mary Lindsey wants Lenzi to want. This is the most emotional book I've read in a while, and that, folks, is the reason I exited the airplane a blubbering mess, not caring about what kinds of looks I was getting from flight attendants and fellow passengers alike.

You see, from the moment I glimpsed at the cover, I knew this book was going to be great. Philomel, I applaud your design team -- they really knocked this one out of the park.

During the reading process itself, I constantly found myself switching sides as far as who Lenzi was with. From the beginning, she's with Zak, and during her scenes with him, I just fell apart. Then she spent time with Alden, and I fell for him, too. Each time she spent time with the Zak, I convinced myself Alden was not the right guy for her, and the other way around. Shattered Souls tore me apart emotionally. The love triangle wasn't made up of one guy who she totally should've been with and one guy who was just there to advance the plot. I commend Mary for constructing the foundation so well. The novel wouldn't have been as heartbreaking and fantastic had the triangle not have fit the description of said adjectives.

The car scene toward the end is when I started blubbering like an emotional fool. From then on, I just lost it. I couldn't even stand the thought of Alden's and Lenzi's romance being torn apart. The ending was magnificent, and I'm completely satisfied with the ending. I'm glad it's not a series, because it ended perfectly where it was and I couldn't have been happier with it. Mary Lindsey is now on my must-buy list.

And, yes, that sexxay cover image wraps around!

Five Owls