Lullaby / Amanda Hocking Review

LULLABY
by Amanda Hocking
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: November 13th
Cover: gorgeous! I love the swirls behind the title, and the "Amanda Hocking" font stands out well among the waves. I love the water and horizon in the distance, and the color of the model's dress pops.
Rating: 3 of 5 owls

Goodreads Summary:

Harper only wanted a safe, normal life. But when her younger sister Gemma runs off with a dangerous clique of beautiful girls, Penn, Thea, and Lexi, everything changes. Vowing to get her sister back no matter what the cost, Harper must face dangers unlike any she's ever experienced. Fortunately, she has Daniel by her side, a gorgeous guy who's devoted to helping her find her sister—and who's immune to the girls' dark powers. 
While Harper searches for her sister, Gemma struggles to adjust to her new life.  Gemma's powers are growing by the day, and the longer she lives with her new "sisters," the harder it is to resist entering their magical world.  It's a realm both dark and beautiful, and where she's plagued by strange hungers and unspeakable needs.  Just as she's drifting far away from her old life,  Harper and Daniel find her...but no one can deny how much she's changed.  All she wants is to return to her family and the mortal world, but how can she do that when she's become something else entirely—and will they still love her once they learn the truth?
Prepare to fall under the spell of Lullaby, the second book in the Watersong series from New York Times bestselling author Amanda Hocking.

Review:

Lullaby was off-putting at first. I was beginning to doubt everything I had quasi-fallen-in-love-with in the first installment. The characters were one-dimensional and all read the same; the plot (if you could even call it that) trod along slowly, lagging worse than the first-ever PC; everything was just awful. It continued like this for quite a while. I was shaking my head at Amanda Hocking for writing a filler book.

I'm not going to say all of these problems that were prevalent in the beginning completely resolved themselves; toward the end, yes, the characters lightened up and developed their own voices, but the scars that were present in beginning were still blatant in my mind. The plot came out from behind the curtain in the middle, and there was a bit of a mystery, which I wasn't expecting. Surprisingly, a bit of tension started to build. It delighted me, to see an amateur storyteller growing wings and finding a direction for her book.

You may be thinking, "Hayden, you seem pretty negative. Why did you give this book three stars if you didn't like it?" Good question, everyone. See, I actually did like it, even though it may not seem like it at this point. I liked a lot of things about Lullaby; I just had to get the negatives out first. For one, Hocking seemed to have realized her writing was at a second-grade level and, in certain spots, upped the ante. Certain emotional scenes were written so beautifully I almost teared up.

I expected more out of the ending, however. She left us with a sweet taste of a cliffhanger, rather than just pulling everything out from beneath us like is the norm in YA these days. Don't get me wrong, it ended nicely, it just didn't deliver the gut-punch I was anticipating.

3/5 stars. Holding mild excitement for the next one.