REVIEW: Lailah by Nikki Kelly

The girl knows she’s different. She doesn’t age. She has no family. She has visions of a past life, but no clear clues as to what she is, or where she comes from. But there is a face in her dreams – a light that breaks through the darkness. She knows his name is Gabriel.

On her way home from work, the girl encounters an injured stranger whose name is Jonah. Soon, she will understand that Jonah belongs to a generation of Vampires that serve even darker forces. Jonah and the few like him, are fighting with help from an unlikely ally – a rogue Angel, named Gabriel.

In the crossfire between good and evil, love and hate, and life and death, the girl learns her name: Lailah. But when the lines between black and white begin to blur, where in the spectrum will she find her place? And with whom?

Gabriel and Jonah both want to protect her. But Lailah will have to fight her own battle to find out who she truly is.

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MY THOUGHTS
This book sounded so amazing! It has a fantastically intriguing cover and a very interesting idea, but sadly, it failed to meet any of my expectations. I've seen negative reviews around, but ignored them, thinking that I would still like this book. This book had potential, but ended up being just another cliche YA paranormal.

**apologies, but there may be ranting ahead**

May as well start with the positives. I love the idea behind the book. A girl who has no memory of who she even is, with repeating visions of past lives? Sounds so mysterious! I also think that Nikki Kelly had a pretty good grasp on her world. The history of the Angels and Vampires was very well-done, even if it had some info-dump, and there was definitely a lot of creativity involved in it (instead of using the usual aspects of the paranormal beings).

Sadly, the entire plot seemed to revolve more on the romance. Lailah has two guys liking her in this book,and she kisses both of them. The romance between her a Gabriel was so cheesy, it made me gag. Gabriel himself is just like every other YA paranormal love interest.  He seems like a good guy at first, but he keeps lying to Lailah. Let's not forget to mention that a hot girl that keeps trying to get together with Gabriel. Why does every YA love interest have to have some hot girl to make the MC jealous, seriously? As for the other guy, I really couldn't understand that one. He kind of creeped me out, but Lailah kissed him and lead him on even though it's obvious who she really likes.

As for Lailah, I expected a badass, independent girl, but no. She seemed that way in the beginning, but she began the usual YA girl. Blah.

Lastly, I want to touch on the flashbacks. Most of this book was made up of flashbacks. I liked the flashbacks, but the formatting bothered me. There was no way to tell what was a flashback and what was not. and it was very confusing.

IN CONCLUSION
I didn't hate this book, but I was not a fan. I am personally getting sick of all the same YA paranormals and this one just followed the same trend. The plot has promise, but the romance took over and the MC annoyed me. I will not be picking up the sequel.

I hereby give this book

1 Star

Meaning: I did not like it