Ohnmächtig

Swoon #1

by Nina Malkin, Kattrin Stier (Übersetzer)

SIN IS COMING...PREPARE TO SWOON

Torn from her native New York City and dumped in the land of cookie-cutter preps, Candice is resigned to accept her posh, dull fate. Nothing even happens in Swoon, Connecticut...until Dice's perfect, privileged cousin Penelope nearly dies in a fall from an old tree and her spirit interwines with that of a ghost. His name? Sinclair Youngblood Powers. His mission? Revenge and while Pen is obvious to the possession, Dice is all too aware of Sin. She's intesely drawn to him but not at all crazy abolut 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.

What do you do when the boy of your dreams is too bad to be true?

Genres: Young Adult, Paranormal, Romance, Fantasy, Ghosts, Supernatural, Paranormal Romance

416 pages, Paperback

First published May 19, 2009

Reviews

[Cesar (Inactive) · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 star

When Twilight was released, there was a rise in YA paranormal romance. It was already there, but Twilight jumpstarted the surge of paranormal romance. Post-Twilight brought many new authors into the fray of writing stories of the main character meeting the paranormal hottie. Whether they be vampires, werewolves, or any other type of paranormal creature, many readers were enthralled by it.

But of course, there are the ones that are done bad that makes us question what the author was trying to write. Two perfect examples are Fallen by Lauren Kate and Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick. Both books had the same recipe for creating a YA paranormal romance. But what I've noticed is that most people didn't like how Daniel was mean to Lucinda or how Patch was a creepy stalker to Nora. When I see authors writing these types of characters or love interests, it makes me wonder why they would give them such a bad first impression. Daniel and Patch sound hot, but I wouldn't exactly be falling head over heels in love with them if they're being mean or creepy. Though I can see the appeal for them. There's no shame in loving these books if they're your favorite.

Then came Swoon and... I still can't get my head wrapped around it. I think Swoon is a perfect example of how NOT to write a paranormal romance. I'm wondering how this book got published in the first place.

Swoon is bad. *insert every synonym for bad* There is no saving grace of this book. I tried to give it a chance and I was left with a crappy book. Swoon makes Fallen and Hush, Hush look like masterpieces while Swoon is a pile of crap left in the garbage.

Swoon tells the story of Candice 'Dice' Moskow who was plucked from New York and dumped in the Connecticut town of Swoon (Yes, that is the town name). One day, her cousin Pen climbs up a tree because she's stupid and falls from it. Unbeknownst to them, the spirit of a man, Sinclair Youngblood Powers, who was falsely accused of murdering his pregnant girlfriend from the 1700s was resting there and when Pen fell, he saw the opportunity to possess her and swears to take revenge on the descendants of those who murdered him. So now Dice has to stop him from causing harm to the people of Swoon. The only problem is, she's in love with him.

This does sound like your stereotypical YA paranormal romance from the late 2000s. While the plot may not sound too good, it did have the opportunity to be at least a mediocre book that has lukewarm reception. In actuality, Swoon is badly written, has bad characters, has a bad plot, and has a bad love interest. My 1-star rating is not a joke. This book was just bad in general.

Swoon was trying way too hard to become like Twilight that it's laughably bad. There is no saving grace for this book. None whatsoever.

Let's get on with the negatives. And there is a lot.

Characters.
The characters are lifeless, dull, and stupid. Not one of them is likable and are about as interesting as a plain houseplant. Actually, that would be an insult to plants. Dice is just another boring protagonist who is in love with Sin despite not knowing him and is a threat to everyone in Swoon but she still wants to jump on that dick because he's hot.

Speaking of Sin, he is a pathetic excuse of a love interest. He doesn't have a personality other than seeking revenge on the descendants of those who murdered him (which is stupid considering the descendants are NOT their ancestors). He's described as hot and every girl wants a piece of him because he's hot. Did I mention he's hot because that's all there is to him. Plus I don't buy the fact that everything was handed to him on a silver platter when he gets his own body. A boy from the 1700s cannot adjust to the 21st century in a matter of days. His arc was nonexistent.

These two characters have no life in them.

There's also that the characters go by a monosyllable nickname. Candice is Dice and Sinclair is Sin. Which is completely unnecessary. The idea of a monosyllable nickname is not a bad thing overall. But every character in this story has that nickname and it just feels redundant.

The writing.
The inner monologue of Dice is strange. There are teens out there who have a wide vocabulary and use those words on occasion. More than likely, you've met one. Dice, on the other hand, is not one of them. She is a character that belongs in the 1800s. Her use of words and vocabulary made her sound like she grew up in the 1800s instead of the 21st century. There were moments when I had to go back and re-read sentences just so I could understand what had happened. It couldn't have hurt for Malkin to use regular words instead of words that made her 17-year-old character sound like a woman in her 30s from the 1800s?

The romance.
As mentioned earlier, Swoon was trying too hard to be like Twilight and other YA novels with a mysterious bad-boy love interest. Except Sin is not a bad boy. He is just a bad character. And for some reason, Dice is in love with him because he's hot. Give me a fucking break.

This also brings another problem with the romance and that is the instalove. Yes, this is an instalove book. I'll admit, there are a lot of hot guys out there and if I think they're hot, I think they're hot. However, that does not mean I will also love them at first sight. They could be a dick and when I find out they are like that, any attraction I felt goes down the drain and I move on.

Dice, on the other hand, completely ignores all logic and cognitive thinking and falls in love with Sin at first sight. Here's where I get angry at Dice for being a complete idiot in love. Sin wants to take revenge on the town of Swoon. At a party for the elderly, he starts a fire at the banquet they are at and kills two people. He was seen laughing. And what does Dice do? Forgets that ever happens and is still in love with him. This made me angry at her. Dice, he killed two people and laughed at their deaths. That is a massive red flag for you to get rid of him and fall in love with a regular guy. But no, she is still in love with him. She wants to jump on that golem dick because it's the only thing that gives her life any meaning.

Sin is not a bad boy character trope. He's a bad person. Nothing about him is redeemable.

The plot.
You're not missing out on anything by skipping this book. There are a lot of better YA paranormal novels out there. Yes, even Fallen and Hush, Hush are better than this. And that's saying a lot considering not many people like those two. Dice falls in love with Sin, that goes on for a good chunk of the story and that's it. Nothing more, nothing less. Just a boring, derivative, and a waste of time.

Positives... There's none.

Verdict

Swoon tried to hard to be like Twilight. How this was even published and seen the light of day, I'll never know. This was just a bad book. Would not recommend.

Thanks for reading my review!

-Cesar

[Gemma · Rating 1 out of 5]

Beware fellow readers: The blurb may seem promising, but DO NOT BE TAKEN IN.
I'd love to meet the person who wrote the blurb, as I think I can safely say all who read this book have done so because of it.

I picked up Swoon expecting a pretty generic but hopefully enjoyable read.
Sadly, I was misled. I wanted to be a trooper and bravely carry on reading this book, but it got to the point where I just couldn't make my poor mind take in any more.
For me, it was the spanking scene. Yep, you heard right. IN FRONT OF CHILDREN. God, there's only so much of a story I can ridicule before it gets too much!

For all those who are attracted by the seemingly hot hero, DON'T BE! The guy is a masochistic nutjob whose origins are so weird I couldn't explain it's awfulness even if I tried. Let's just say it makes Genesis seem plausible in comparison.

The characters are terrible too. Dice is ridiculous pining over the creepily perverted Sin, and Pen is just a vapid bimbo desperate to have sex with said creep. Malkin seemed to add sex, drugs & general 'debauchery' into this novel to make it 'modern' & 'edgy'.
Alas, she failed. Miserably.
It ended up as a pretty pathetic and transparent device to lure young YA fans into buying this. For those (extremely few) people who may like this book, I'm not some kind of Christian-y prude who doesn't like sex and thinks all young people are evil. I just hate it when someone assumes all young people do and think about is take drugs. And have sex.
What was it even about anyways? Ghosts, golems... Even the plot was stupid. Which is a real shame, since the premise was actually very smart. It's just sad that Malkin took it and twisted it into something so bad it should be used as a guide on how NOT to write a book. It's like the ultimate spoof of YA novels, except it's FOR REAL.

Move over Stephen King, Nina Malkin inspires the most fear in me; fear for the sanity of publishers who thought this book was actually fit to be read. *shudder*

[Tatiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought Hush, Hush was the worst Twilight-inspired paranormal ya romance, but no, it’s Swoon. It’s hard to explain how bizarre this book is, but it was clearly written by someone who really, really wanted to write erotica about orgies, drugs and bdsm, but alas, got a ya publishing deal.

Giving it 2 stars because I kept listening to it with a WTF kind of awe.

[Kristi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Swoon was totally not what I was expecting. And not in a bad way, just much more dark, edgy and sensual than I had anticipated.

In the vast sea of ya paranormals this one definitely left it’s mark on me. Malkin has a way with words, originally I was intimidated by the size, well actually, I was just afraid it would take me awhile to read it, but essentially it took me no time at all, it was surprisingly addictive. The pages were turning non-stop. It’s one of those novels where you just have to know what’s going to happen next, what does the ending hold! It was an obsession, and I had to know.

As twisted as Dice’s feelings for Sin were, I could help but understand her reasoning. And even though Sin was wicked, wickedly handsome I mean! I couldn’t help but like him too. Call me crazy. I didn’t really feel like I connected with these characters, instead of feeling like I was part of the story, I felt that I was a spectator watching from the sidelines, but for some reason I didn’t mind. It was just different, I can’t really describe it. It’s like eating sour candy! It so sour but so good!

There are sexual references, nothing descriptive, anatomy is mentioned, certain acts are mentioned, but nothing that a teen hasn’t heard walking down the halls of their high school, maybe that’s presumptuous of me. It’s been a few years since I’ve been in high school and I was classified as a “good kid” and it wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before. Just thought I’d mention that if it isn’t your sort of thing.

Swoon is something to behold. Awesome story line, original plot. Prepare to swoon indeed.

[Bex · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't really care that the content was adult- and by adult I mean I've read cleaner sex scenes in trashy adult romance novels. It was just the extent of it.

On EVERY PAGE.

Fondling...sex...orgies? Seriously? This is Young Adult Lit? I thought the beastiality in Tender Morsels was bad. This was soft porn for teens. We didn't get a full description of Sin's manhood- but I am sure that is what the sequels are for.

The story- could have been cool, minus the possession via tree fall bit. The Dice's obsession, or, dare I say it, LOVE for Sin? It was just a bit, you know, dodgy.

And the names. Good God the names! Dice? Pen? Sin? Marsh? Wick? No and Way? REALLY? It was distracting and and in my opinion just silly. Pen's shortening of Penelope? Works. Marsh for Kristin Marshall? That was her name right? Kristin? Because I think there was a Kristin in the book and it could only match up with Marsh. By the time her REAL name was mentioned again (outside of the second chapter), I had forgotten who the hell Kristin was.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.

[Andi Raney · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got to that rape scene and was done. I just couldn't do it.

Two women I love and respect to my very core (who I shall not name) are rape victims. One of them has talked about it with me.

It almost ruined her life.

And to see a author of YA romance fiction treat it like a joke made me cry. I'm serious, I cried. I cried because young girls are reading this and think that rape is funny. They might think that no one will care if they scream for help. Or maybe, the one that really gets me, those young girls will think that they deserve this punishment.

That scene was a big 'FUCK YOU' to people (men and women, mind you) like my friends.

Ms. Malkin, it's people like you that make me sick. It's people like you who give me no hope for the future. Think before you write, especially in a genre like YA. Rape is a terrible act that haunts many people around the world. It has ruined and shattered lives beyond repair. It has caused people to kill themselves.

And you treat it like a joke.

I don't know if I can do it anymore. Read these awful YA books that have been coming out sense Twilight. The same formula, the terrible morals, the TSTL heroine and the love interest always being the bad boy or jackass.

Fuck it all.

[Monique · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am sort of sad that Nina Malkin is not a Goodreads author, because this review will be somewhat in vain and this crazy tour around Inansityville will continue unhindered. Because, seriously. This piece of trash has a sequel and where there is one, there are many. This I have learnt from Twilight and Shiver.

Basically, this one reads like a Mills and Boon Blaze novel and Twilight were left to their own devices and managed to procreate even though the parts were not quite compatible.

This is YA erotica. And like most normal erotica, the plot is a farce. The characters are stupid. The plot... Wait. Covered that point.

It is The Worst Book Ever. And I have experienced plenty of bad.

[Rose · Rating 1 out of 5]

Soapbox Review to come. I told myself that I was doing very well this year without having read a single book that I thought was worth one star or less, and then I picked up this YA title from the library. It was a quick read, but my mind can't wrap around how many things are just...wrong with this story, and it includes, but isn't limited to, the graphic content.

***

Nina Malkin's "Swoon" takes the title of being the worst YA novel I've ever read. Not just one of the worst, but the worst novel in its particular class, if not beyond it. I rarely say that about any book because I try to give every novel a fair shot in terms of what it brings to the table.

I can ascertain that it's not just because this wasn't my cup of tea. No, it goes far beyond that, because I can't, for the life of me, figure out how such a disjointed, oversexed, fantastically Mary Sue shallow novel with utterly no point to be made other than having a boorish female character fall in love with a boy ghost so horrid that it takes the definition of gender and character fail to the next level (if there are even levels to consider) would make it to publication in a genre that has far better material to offer.

There are some great paranormal/urban fantasy novels to be had in the YA genre, some even involving ghost stories with wonderfully imaginative settings, developed characters, beautifully written relationship dynamics and other things that make them memorable. And even if they may not excel in some or most of those categories, there are still some paranormal novels that manage to be enjoyable reads in and of themselves.

This is not one of those stories.

I wish there were a silver lining to be had in Malkin's novel - something to be said in her writing voice, or something distinctive that would at least, to the author's credit, allow me to recommend her future works or ascertain her potential in other degrees. Unfortunately, nothing about "Swoon" convinced me of this - not the characterization, not the handling of the themes, not even the so called attempts at "edgy" writing. (N.B. Edgy writing does not entail throwing together explicit scenes with no rhyme or reason to them, and especially not without repercussions.)

The story revolves around Dice, a seventeen year old young woman who realizes her best friend Pen is possessed by a malevolent ghost. The aforementioned ghost, Sinclair Youngblood Powers (a.k.a. Sin), seeks vengeance on a town that accused him of murder and put him to death. The premise seems intriguing, even considering the measure that Dice falls in love with the ghost knowing what a bad influence he is.

From the beginning, despite my reservations about the naming of the characters, I tried to get behind the idea that Dice calls her friends and companions by abbreviated names. I had no problem with that in theory, though I'll admit it made it harder to connect with the characters trying to remember who was who.

The only characters that I consistently followed without referral were Dice and Pen, and of course, Sin. Sin I remembered because of his oh-so-obvious naming. And the author proceeds to tell us so:

"As it turned out, Sinclair adopted a tidy truncation too. Can you guess? I’ll give you a hint: It wasn’t Clair."

Authorial intrusion much? This isn't the only instance, but it was one of the ones that stood out to me. I think it might've been intended as a joke or something of a "cute" statement, but then again, the humor in the progression of this was awkward collectively speaking. I cringed when I read something akin to the character's smile being incorporated with a statement about a brillo pad, and a statement that her hair "had to look like Helen Keller styled it" after a particularly blunt scene. And don't get me started on the attempts at ghetto speak.

Another thing, I can understand an author taking a medical condition and crafting it in a way that ties in with either mystic or paranormal inclinations, that's fine, many authors have done this in inventive ways. But I don't know if I was all that convinced of Dice's particular diagnosis with epilepsy because it didn't ever feel like it was tangible or handled well enough to make me empathize with the character. I felt like I was told more about them than shown. It was less intimate to the character, more generic. And even with that, I think there were several moments when I actually forgot that Dice had a psychic ability, so I don't even think that was tied into the progressive plot well.

I suppose that should lead me into how loose/disjointed of a plot this book really had. Chapters end incongruously and on awkward transitions, and while Dice isn't a perfect character, she makes insufferable decisions which make no sense (and the supporting cast isn't much better.) While the plot does deliver some of its basic promises (establishing a character that falls in love with a very bad ghost), the way it's told is largely disjointed and the characters never fully come to fruition. They're cardboards that engage in all kinds of deviant behavior without due repercussions, so it makes it hard to find what message Malkin intended to send in this novel, if there were such a message at all.

Even those considerations didn't make my blood boil as much as when I considered some of the more disturbing parts of this novel. I suppose it boils down, primarily, to the amount of drug use and sex (some of which border to rape or near-rape). When you have a scene with the love interest of the novel commands other characters to pull down the female lead's pants and spank her to elicit a sexual reaction from her….I think that speaks for itself as far as a line being crossed.

I don't think Malkin considered her audience very well, and it's painfully clear that those scenes had no purpose in and of themselves except to be - for lack of a better term - "shocking." This is too much for anyone under 18 years of age and it should not be considered YA.

While the novel concludes in a stand alone format, I had no investment to continue reading in this particular universe.

Suffice to say, I will not be reading the sequel (the fact that this even had a sequel baffles me). And I would not recommend this work to those I know. Save your time and hard earned money for a book that has better contributions.

As far as whether I'll read another work by this author, I'm still grappling on that decision.

[James Tullos · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was parody. I refuse to believe otherwise.

[Eilonwy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Swoon, Connecticut, population 500 or so and with no cell phone reception, seems a pretty dull hamlet to 17-year-old Candice "Dice" Moskow, whose parents have moved her there from New York City due to its proximity to family. However, things get a little more interesting when Dice's gorgeous cousin Pen falls out of a tree while doing acrobatics after smoking pot (don't try this at home, kids). Pen has been possessed by the spirit of 21-year-old Sinclair Youngblood Powers, who was hanged from the tree in 1751 for a crime he did not commit. "Sin" immediately begins to exert his personality over Pen, and the rest of the town. Dice, who has some psychic ability, is able to perform a sort of exorcism which brings him out of Pen and into his own body -- but with Sin bent on revenge upon the whole town, has she just made things worse?

This is a major mess of a book. It was a fairly good read, as the author gives Dice a strong, sassy narrative voice with a lot of attitude and some clever lines. However, the pretensions -- a town named Swoon, and the idea that all the high school kids are going by one-syllable names (Dice, Pen, Sin, brothers Crane and Duck, sisters El and Em, hockey players No and Way)-- are strained and a bit much to swallow. There's alot of casual drug use among these kids -- constant pot smoking and underage drinking, and some Ecstasy. And Sin's idea of revenge consists solely of filling the townspeople with lust, so there's quite alot of sex going on, although it is not described in any detail.

More of a problem is that there are two Mary Sues in the story -- Dice herself, who looks exactly like the author photo, and the unbelievable and incredibly gorgeous Sin, who can drive a car, play a harmonica (although, Dice even points out in the text, the harmonica wasn't invented until 1821), and has amazing, um, powers of charm and persuasion. Everyone loves him. He fits in with every crowd at school. Everyone buys his crazy stories and lets him do whatever he wants.

Even more of a problem for me was that Dice is madly in love with Sin -- who is a complete jerk throughout the story, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever other than a sob story about his dead 18th century girlfriend. It's not as though Dice is blind to all this, either -- I found myself laughing every few pages as she would go into yet another moan about how awful he is, but she loooooves him anyway! What exactly does it take for a modern teen heroine to decide that a hot boy really is bad news? Or does hotness just override anything else? I considered for a while in the middle that the book might be meant as a farce, but unfortunately, at the end the relationship between Dice and Sin is pretty well presented as Real Love. Yuck!

The thing that really kept me reading was the other ghost in the story -- Ruby Ramirez, Dice's best friend from New York. The reader doesn't learn what happened to Ruby until the very end of the book, which is a shame, because I think this subplot could have been used to give the story a genuine emotional depth it sorely lacks.

This is kind of a trashy beach book for teenagers, somewhat enjoyable in a very trashy way, but I honestly can't recommend it.

[BOOK BUTTERFLY · Rating 4 out of 5]

Torn from her native New York City, nickname-loving Candice (or Dice) is resigned to accept her fate when she is transported into Swoon Connecticut, a place where nothing ever happens. That is until spoiled cousin Penelope, better known as Pen, has a near fatal fall from an ancient ash tree. Pen's body is infiltrated by the vengeful spirit of an eighteenth century man bent on revenge against the descendants of those who unjustly murdered him. In an attempt to save Pen from the possession, Dice accidentally frees the spirit of Sinclair Youngblood Powers (aptly nicknamed Sin), and installs him into the body of a real flesh-and-blood man. Now more dangerous than ever, Sin awakens the quiet, cookie cutter small town to their darkest, most suppressed desires and subsequently leaves a path of destruction in his wake. Dice is the only person who can save her friends and family from Sin before it’s too late. But there’s just one problem- she’s inexplicably, utterly in love with him. In setting Sin free, she knows she’ll lose him forever. Dice must struggle with her desire for Sin and her loyalty to her family and friends before it's too late.

Swoon was a dark, edgy and sensual read. The starkly beautiful prose in which Malkin constructs her sentences was like a breath of fresh air, and I found myself wanting to savor each delicious turn of the page. By far, my favorite character was Dice. Told in the first person narrative, her observations were so wry and so honest, I felt like I was transported into the book, sitting right next to her and totally immersed in everything she was confiding in me with. I understood why she was so conflicted in her feelings, especially when it came to Sin. And let’s talk about Sin, shall we? Sin was so witty, so ruthless and so insanely passionate. Not to mention gorgeous and a gentleman (in his own strange way). There were times when I knew I should hate him, but I simply could not. It was easy to see why Dice would fall for him, who wouldn't?
There are a lot of conflicting reviews I have read about this book. Though I agree with other reviewers that the writing could meander a bit, the characters were so well developed and the atmosphere so hauntingly decadent, I was able to overlook it with no problem. Many people also objected to the parade of “lust” left behind as Sin ran rampant through the once peaceful, mild mannered town. While I can understand that, I personally did not think it was portrayed in an overtly explicit manner. However, with that being said, Swoon is not a book that everyone will love, and it's definitely geared toward older, more mature teens.

BOTTOM LINE: Swoon is a novel that will stay with you long after you have finished reading it. It’s a smartly written, achingly beautiful novel about improbable love and unimaginable loss

[Tammy · Rating 1 out of 5]

No. Just No.

(Fully fleshed out and more coherently thought out review to come later)

What on earth did I just read? I'm not a prude (in fact, I applaud YA authors who deal with sexual situations in a frank manner), but last time I checked, spanking is something that's featured in erotic fiction, not YA.

Was there a plot? Who knows? The only thing I can pretty much tell you is that this book didn't make me care enough to want to pick up on any nuances and undertones in the novel.

The characters? Just not worth investing any time into. Dice could have been a character I liked, but her obsession with Sinclair was grating enough for me to read this book with a good dose of emotional detachment.

Sinclair is bad to the bone and completely irredeemable if you ask me. I don't particularly care whether or not he is considered an anti-hero, the thing is for me, an anti-hero at least has one redemptive quality that makes him worth rooting for.

His so-called redemption? With the things he did throughout most of the novel, it pretty much amounted to too little too late. Yes, he had a tragic past, but taking revenge on the people who framed him for murder's ancestors?

I just didn't buy it.

As for the writing? Some have said the prose is beautiful? All I found were jumbled, choppy sentences that threw me for a loop throughout most of the novel.

The structure of this novel also left me incredibly confused. Often I wasn't sure if Dice was having a flashback, whether or not I was going down a rabbit hole into a completely different time zone or whether she even was in the Swoon or another city entirely.

So how did I manage to stick it through to the end? Call it morbid curiosity and an obnoxious tendency to want to stick it out when it comes to certain reads that are so bad that you, ironically enough, can't put them down. Sometimes I should really learn to get a grip on this.

I have, after all, abandoned other reads. I suppose the difference is that my threshold of hope differs for each one? For Swoon, it certainly held on for far longer than I should have allowed it to.

Go figure.

However, don't let me deter you from reading this. Other people have raved about it - it just wasn't for me. Maybe you'll like it more than what I did?

Review will feature on my blog shortly.

[Kimberly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was going to hold off on writing reviews for a bit, but having read this book, I just couldn't keep my mouth shut. I picked up Swoon because I was in the mood for a romantic ghost story, but what I got was really more of a hybrid:one part haunted love story, and one part soapy book about the misbehavior of pretty rich kids, which is only in part supernaturally inspired. The heroine, Dice (short for Candice) has recently moved to the town of Swoon, Connecticut, full of rich, beautiful people, mostly blond. Dice's friend and cousin Pen(elope) is beautiful and daring; too daring, it seems, as she takes a tumble while climbing a tree stoned, is knocked unconscious and thereby possessed by a ghost. A very sexy ghost from the 18th century named Sinclair Youngblood Powers, or Sin for short (are you sick of the nicknames yet? Because I was!), with whom Dice becomes quite smitten. Then she and Penelope arrange for his exorcism but accidentally make him flesh, and the real trouble begins.

Great premise, huh? In fact, the premise itself was good enough to keep me reading to the end of Swoon, even after putting it down once and getting rather bored with the kids' shenanigans. I'm not one of those people who thinks it's inappropriate to include sex or drug use in a YA novel, but here they really became quite tedious, even list-y. There are no graphic details, but somehow that only makes things feel more superficial: the sex more casual and the friends less friends than partying buddies. Had this matched my own high school experience, maybe I could relate a little better, but in general, the world of Swoon left me cold.

So did the love interest, Sin. (Don't you love that subtle foreshadowing?) Sin is given an intriguing back story, though the 18th century details felt rather inauthentic to me. At one point in the story, Dice is verbally assaulted by a friend's anti-Semitic father, and Pen, under Sin's control, comes to her rescue. I found myself wondering how realistic this was, given the times Sin grew up in, though perhaps we are meant to assume that, as a half-Indian, half-white bastard, he had sympathy for other victims of prejudice. Realistic or not, this act is one of the few good deeds Sin performs throughout the novel, as most of his energy is focused on vengeful wreaking of havoc among the citizens of Swoon, punishing them for the deeds of their ancestors more than two centuries before. I kept thinking that Sin would be like the Phantom of the Opera, or maybe Darryl Van Horne from the Witches of Eastwick; someone you know is a baddie, but who is so charming or at least so devoted to the heroine that you want to forgive him anyway. No such luck; I love a good anti-hero or seductive villain, but Sin just didn't cut it.

I am somewhat more ambivalent about the heroine, Dice. The novel is written in first person, and Malkin has an engaging writing style, and Dice comes across as quite witty. She moved to Swoon from New York, and is understandably bemused by the lack of diversity in the small town, which also makes her sympathetic. Dice sees herself as an outsider, but how much of one is she, really? As noted above, she is the victim of anti-Semitism, and that is serious business. However, the fellow who insults her is a generally abusive idiot, particularly to his own family, and his behavior in no way reflects the rest of Swoon society. Dice gets invited to all the same parties as the other kids, has just as many friends, and though she describes herself as no beauty by Swoon standards, doesn't seem to hurt for male attention. Yet as unconvincing as she was, I liked Dice a great deal better whining about her outsider-dom than wringing her hands over Sin's bad behavior, as she does for much of the second half of the book. I'd give her some credit if she tried to stop anything Sin does, using her psychic abilities, her pull, or even simple logic, but she doesn't. And even though she was a witty narrator, throughout much of the book the events described were too serious or even tragic for such a humorous voice.

I give this book two stars instead of one because I did want to find out how the book ended, was kind of amused by Pen-possessed-by-Sin, and really liked one of the supporting characters, Marsh (Kristin Marshall), daughter of the abusive anti-Semite mentioned above. Hers is a story of strength and survival, with an ending I didn't love but which, in a way, felt right. But this wasn't meant to be Marsh's story, and the awfulness of what she has to deal with makes Dice look like a bad friend and makes Sin's policy of "the sins of the fathers" falling on the sons even more reprehensible. It's a good story, but it's squeezed round the edges of a rather bad one, and I'll probably need some convincing before trying another of Malkin's books.

[Sara (Freadom Library) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Check out my series review here: https://freadomlibrary.wordpress.com/...

Critically
Plot – 3 out of 5 stars
really slow, kind of confusing, includes some unfortunate graphic content, insta love, it deals with ghosts, mythology, psychic abilities, it felt really flat and it was kind of boring the majority of the time

Writing Style – 3 out of 5 stars
really long and dragged out, kind of scattered with the thought process, simple, descriptive, kind of intense, dark, heavy, weird as hell

Characters – 2.5 out of 5 stars
This was probably the worst part of the book for me. The characters, pretty much all of them were annoying and kind of stupid. The main character Candice, nicknamed Dice, is just really naive and immature. She’s young and she tries too hard, to fit in, to be normal and it just makes me feel bad for her. Because she is sweet and she has a lot of good intentions but she’s easily manipulated and it got really annoying really quickly that she didn’t wake the hell up. Her cousin Penelope, or Pen who is the one who gets possessed also kind of annoyed me but in a different way. She’s privileged and spoiled and definitely thinks that the world owes her something. That she deserves everything. And then slowly but surely she got angry, and intense and really loose. It became really over the top and dramatic and even dangerous and I was not a fan. And then we have the ghost extraordinaire, Sin, who was an enigma the entire time. He’s charming and manipulative and intense. He’s dark and vengeful and I don’t really know where the main character’s attraction came from because they didn’t interact much in the entire story. I was just really disappointing with this second read about this book.

Emotionally
I was extremely and completely disappointed by this duology. I was excited to reread the first book but it wasn’t what I remembered and the second book didn’t help matters.

The first book was disappointing because I didn’t enjoy it as much the second time around.

The plot is heavy. We follow Candice (Dice) who has recently moved to a small town of Swoon, Connecticut and one day has an encounter with a ghost who takes possession of her cousin’s body. Sounds awesome, right? It was awesome in the beginning, the plot hooks you in and the writing style is quirky but everything just keeps going and going and going. It felt so long and dragged out and things just kept getting more complicated and nothing was resolved and I was just done with it, I wanted it to be over. I lost the interest that I had when I first started reading and that was not fun. If it had been shorter and more concise, I would’ve enjoyed it a lot more. There were some interesting twists and turns but I was so disinterested that they didn’t really make much of an impact on my reading experience. It was really disappointing.

Dice was a strange character. She has these like psychic kind of powers and she gets apparitions of her dead best friend which I didn’t understand why they were a part of the plot. I didn’t connect with or understand her well. I didn’t believe in her thoughts and actions, I felt like she had a hidden agenda and some of her motives were actually quite shady.

Sin is supposed to be this mysterious man, that no one understands, that is scary and intimidating but in reality he was just lackluster. There were some things that were intriguing about him but the general aspect of him didn’t come across as well as it could’ve. The romance was pure insta love. They barely spent any time together, they shared even less and Dice was convinced that she was in love with him, just from listening to his life. It was unbelievable and boring and didn’t make me feel anything. There were too many side characters that brought nothing new to the story and my general feeling was blah.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy this series as much as I wanted to or as much as I expected to. The first book was okay, even if a little far fetched. The characters were bland and the romance wasn’t believable but the story was interesting. The second book was a waste. There was no need for it in the series, or to make it as long as it was. It was boring and pointless. I wouldn’t recommend this series.

[Rachael · Rating 1 out of 5]

This might possibly be the worst book I have ever read. It is most definitely in the top 10 (and I read a lot of crap books). Welcome to the town of Swoon, CT, with its sordid history; alternately lax-to-the-point-of-neglect and controlling-to-the-point-of-abuse parenting; monosyllabic nicknames; teen parties, sex, drugs, suicide, and ghost-possessed. Meet Dice, our protagonist, abandoned here by her well meaning parents after some unnamed tragedy. She falls in love with an evil, sexually predacious ghost named Sinclair Youngblood Powers. Yes, that's right. Dark magic, body hopping, time travel, and sexual depravity ensue, all described in the most brain-meltingly bad prose you can imagine. Run-on sentences? We've got plenty! Sentence fragments? Bring 'em on! Indescipherable teen-speak? We love it! Grammar? . . . but we do like to use technical chemical names, because it makes us sound smart!
I hardly know where to start: the lack of grammatically correct sentences, the lack of a coherent plot, the sexual excess, the stupid quirkiness. Maybe I'll just start by saying that this is a book about a time travelling, body hopping, revenge seeking ghost who terrorizes a town by making them feel all sexy and desirous of things they should not have. There is some drinking, some drug use, some murder and suicide, a little bit of porn, some light bondage & discipline, a little queerness and incest, pretty much no parental supervision - or any adults, really, and a completely unsympathetic main character who is in love with the ghost (did I mention that his name is Sinclair Youngblood Powers?!?! Really!) for no understandable reason - and yet I didn't like it.
I'm alomst hoping that this book will be a big hit, if only because I might hate the abstinence-porn of Twilight even more than this mess, but at the same time I'd rather people realize how horrible this trash is and refuse to pay money for it.
All that being said, though this book was painful to read, I made everyone I could read it as well because it is so much fun to mock.

[Aileen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was so good, though I've heard it hasn't had the best reviews, I completly disagree. I loved this book, from the beginning when you meet Candice or Dice as she goes by, you just fall in love with her struggle, not just that she's falling in love with Sinclair Youngblood Powers, the handsome, sexy, spirit possessing his cousin Pen, but how she feels this need to save the town from themselves, especially when she inadverently sets him free. This causes making her feelings for him grow even more, which entices readers to a higher level. I thought that this story would be see through and easy to tell the ending, and to a degree I was right, but at the same time, I was also wrong, and that was what brought tears to my eyes and made my heart sing with joy. Though Sin seems like a horrid person at first, and the author Nina Malkin leads you to believe he may be lying about his quandry, when you find he isn't that he's just a love-struck teen set on revenge, you can't help but feel some sympathy towards his problem. Though I espeically, would not agree with his methods, I see that the entire reason he's in Swoon ready to get revenge is out of the love he feels for his dead fiancee. I liked this book at first but it was at the end of the story when Dice is telling Sin about her best friend Ruby and the very end when Candice is with Sin that I thought this bok was amazing. Saying it was sad would be more then just an understatement, it was something much more, something indescribable, something that not only everyone wants, but something that everyone needs to have. This is not only a book I would recommend to anyone, but one that I can't help but love and want to read over and over again.

[Wendy Darling · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm just going to refer you to Kira's review.

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nope.

[Becky · Rating 1 out of 5]

Swoon is the story of Dice who falls in love with Sin, a ghost for want of a better word, who inhabits her cousin Pen's body. It sounds like a simple concept but personally I found Swoon such a difficult book to read. I would even go so far as to say that this is close to being the worst book I have read all year. I bought my copy from the Book Depository as I had read a really interesting review on a blog but I can't remember which one. I certainly do not blame the blogger who recommended this book but I think perhaps they weren't as up front about the content as I am about to be. So hold on to your hats!

Dice is a sincerely irritating main character. Half the time I was reading, I had no idea of what she was talking about. She fell in love with Sin within what appeared to be minutes but we're not not talking about love at first sight here. We're talking about a presence who is haunting her friend. I found the connection between them completely false and could not see why she was attracted to him at all. Perhaps it was all the cannabis she'd been smoking...

Sin's character completely baffled me. He had an insane affect on the whole town which caused them to become highly sexually aroused. Let me give an example - chapter 5 - the teens of Swoon go for a swim in the lake and all have erotic feelings of one kind or another. These feelings happened whenever someone came into contact with him but even by the end of the book, I still hadn't worked out why. Yes, his name is sin but you can't justify a character's actions through their name. Sin wants to avenge a murder but how does this equate to heightened sexual desire? I'm at a loss.

I cannot leave out the most repulsive scene in the book which will most certainly be a spoiler so skip this paragraph if you want to read the book in all its debased glory. I'll just set the scene: Dice visits a country maze with Pen and her two young brothers. Inside the maze is a tiny jail. The boys pretend to lock Dice in because she has been very naughty. Sin shows up and effectively gives her a good spanking. It was described in DETAIL. The result? Dice has an orgasmic experience. I actually couldn't believe this scene when I read it. Maybe this makes me a complete prude, but I really don't care. It was vile to read and nearly made me put the book down. I had to force myself to finish it because I wanted to write this review from the perspective of someone who had read Swoon in its entirety.

The plot was confusing and very slow moving. I guess it didn't help that I just wanted to get to the end. On a more positive note, the ending did tie up many of the loose ends and questions that I had. At last Ruby's character made sense as prior to the end I didn't understand a single scene that she was in. The only likeable character in the whole book was Marsh. Her story was sad but more believeable and she had a personality that I could relate to.

At this point I think it relevant to mention that Simon and Schuster are no longer publishing Swoon in the UK. Perhaps they agree with me that the place for this isn't on a teen bookshelf. Certainly as a School Librarian I wouldn't stock this or ever recommend it to a student. I also have to wonder if Malkin set out to include as much sexual content in Swoon as possible. I won't spoil the content for you but the book was riddled with it. My main issue being that it wasn't the exploration of a developing relationship. It was just Sin's influence that drove the town's people to a complete unleashing of desire.

Overall, I could rant about the hideousness that is this book all day long. But I'll stop there. As long as you know by now that I really didn't like this book then this review is complete.

[Maria · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't recommend Swoon.

*****

You are my life, but you are not my purpose.

NASTY.

Swoon started out great. Then Sinclair came into the scenes, making Dice ‘swoon’ and cheap, then somewhere in that crazy book the plot loses its substance. I did not mind the sexual innuendo at first, but then it gets nastier. Ugh. If it were up to me, I’d list Swoon under Adult Paranormal Romance. Nina Malkin, I have expected more story than this.

Dice is a psychic, or so she says. Her psychic part was barely developed… oh, wait. It helped her with seeing, talking and touching Sinclair. I cannot imagine a far more pathetic heroine than Dice. While Sinclair is so busy ruining people’s lives in Dice’s town, all she can do is pant and lust after him. What the H? She doesn’t do a thing to prevent Sinclair’s wickedness. She just mopes, fantasize, then lust (again) after Sin. Dice has no self-respect at all. Sin slept with her close friend and yet, she wasn’t turned off. Sin spanked her in front of the kids until she comes (yes, for that big O) and still, she’s in love with him. The ending summed up the book very nicely: cheap and senseless. Do you see why I’m riled up?

The storyline is all over the place and the characters are unlikeable. I read Swoon because I got its sequel, Swear, from Simon & Schuster Galley Grab. It looks like I shouldn’t have bother.

[Sassy Sarah Reads · Rating 1 out of 5]

Swoon by Nina Malkin

DNF after 2 chapters (any further and my eyeballs would've fallen out of my head.)

I was rearranging my bookshelves today when I came to the horrifying realization that I would have to doublestack on a shelf. That is something I've never done and almost cried doing. So I've decided to start purging some books. I've been wanting to read this book for years. I was so excited when I found it at a used bookstore and I've had it on my shelf for around four years now. I waited far too long to pick it up because my interest in this style of storytelling has waned.

My problems lie with the characters and writing. The writing is absolutely juvenile and so basic that it feels like even a five-year-old could read it, but I discourage that because these idiots are smoking pot in open public. At least smoke it in a car, not a public park where you could infect the birds with your toxins. Also all the characters have to HAVE a monosyllabic nickname- i.e. Dice, Pen, Sin- the stupidity rages on. This is not a good idea at all and it's far from witty. It's douchey.

Whimsical Writing Scale: 1

Dice also likes to subtly point out how her cousin has big books boobs and is perfect all while sounding envious and downright cruel. Pen is a human being, too, what's the point in trying to tear her down? She also let Pen climb a tree and then saw the danger of it, but decided to stand idly by and do absolutely NOTHING. Once she falls off the tree, she doesn't even call for help and when she gets possessed by a creepy man who was apparently hanged on the tree- why help? She doesn't need an ambulance or a priest. Just walk it off.

Same, Harry.
Also she's psychic! Just another specialty to check off of the extra special qualities shopping cart.

Character Scale: 1

Five years ago this would've probably been at least a four star read. Two years ago I would've at least given it two stars. Now I won't even waste my time because I like my brain and I have better things to fully immerse myself in. Someone else will love and cherish this novel for their bookshelf.

Cover Thoughts: It's a very cliche cover. Girl plastered at bottom making an orgasm face or Photoshopped from a Covergirl add+ some mist+ a basic "creepy" ass tree= your old school paranormal cover.

[Katie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was one of the first I read when starting out on YA novels. I had read a few of them before this, and I was totally fine. Heck, I thought, YA novels could never go wrong. Swoon made me think otherwise.

THIS
BOOK
WAS
AWFUL.


It was the first book on my YA rampage that made me wary about what I was reading. I used to go through my good friend and lover, Goodreads, and leaf through all the 3 star novels it suggested to me. I would read a decently reviewed book and (although it's nothing like The Hunger Games) say to myself "Hmm. That book was okay. Not terribly amazing, but okay." Then came Swoon, and I DIDN'T LISTEN TO GOODREADS LIKE I SHOULD HAVE. THEY WARNED ME. Literally this book is what I compare all other books to (in a bad way). I read a book three years later and I'm going into it thinking "Please god don't let it be like Swoon."

Anyway... I haven't touched the book in a while but I just recently got a Goodreads account so I figured I'd write a review. I don't remember the small details about why I hated it so much, but even after three years, I still remember how much I hated this book. I think that says something.

The writing was too much (in my opinion, Malkin's writing was much too poetic and pretty for the shitty characters and plots she created), the characters were so pathetically underdeveloped and frustrating, and by the end of the book, I was just like



Fortunately, I found good YA novels afterwards that nourished me back to health after such a traumatic experience.

[~Tina~ · Rating 2 out of 5]

The cover is really cool! The book? Not so much...

Swoon was one of those books that I really, really wanted to love. I tried so hard to understand this book but in the end It was just a rambling confusing mess. I think in this case the author was putting to much personal in her characters that were not yet developed enough to appreciate. Even when we did get the feel for the characters they still fell flat and then there's the randomness with sex and lust that took over the initial concept. The plot, writing and the characters were everywhere and I couldn't grasp at any one feeling while reading.

On the plus side there is incredible potential in this book. The concept is intriguing and Sinclair is a wicked character. So my two stars goes to that. Paranormal concept and Sin. Other then that this book wasn't for me.

[The Dreamer Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Good: The beginning was good, it drew you in… and when I say “it drew you in”, what I really meant was the book is practically daring you to put it down! And you can’t because it is so fascinating and you just HAVE to know what happens next. The middle… it was pretty good, but the ending, OMG, the ending really delivered the most.

Usually those types of endings make me want to chuck the book out the window… this was not the case with Swoon. And that takes skill to make me, the most emotional and sensitive person ever, enjoy the ending like that. You really pulled it off so, kudos to you Nina Malkin.

Okay… to the characters.

Dice was very cool. Even though I would never really hang out with her in real life (because she could probably kick my ass), I really liked her! She was sarcastic, interesting, and she was real. I think that’s what I really liked about her; she didn’t try to be anyone else. Not to mention, she’s a really good person to her friends, her family, and practically everyone else.

Even though I like Dice, sometimes I questioned her feelings about Sin. I wondered, “Why is she so in love with him?” and I am sure, everyone who has or will read this book has/will thought/think about that. I mean, if you look in the dictionary for the word “bad boy”, you’ll find Sin’s picture. And probably if his picture is in it, the dictionary will out-sell Twilight… but that’s beside the point.

The point is, even though he’s really bad… you can’t help but have a soft spot for him. He’s handsome, a gentleman (mostly), and he had this huge tragic life, the perfect desirable bad boy. I’m not saying everything he does is justified. Way more than once, he would do something and I would just want to strangle him for being such a jackass! But there were times (way more than once) that really made me… dare I say it, swoon for Sin.

Ack, my mom would probably never let me out of the house for saying that. But, Sin’s the type of guy who would even make the most innocent of girls sneak out their window for him. Not that I would do that because, you know, I would probably die.

So, to an extent, I understand what she was thinking.

Basically what I’m trying to say here is that Ms. Malkin has written very real and balanced characters.

The Bad: This was a little mature, at least for me it was. I usually do not give an age limit for books because I know everyone matures differently, but this is totally for the more mature teen readers and up, only. It’s not completely cringe-worthy; it’s just sometimes awkward to read because it describes certain intimate acts, anatomy, and sexual references. Maybe I have the maturity of a five-year-old, but I felt just a teensy bit uncomfortable reading it sometimes. It was a good book, but young teens should not read this, at least, not yet.

Also, at times the writing was too fast-paced and it left me confused and sometimes, with a headache. So, if you are going to read it, make sure to read slowly. Otherwise, you’ll be really frustrated. And coincidentally, there was some parts that were boring and I wanted to skip ahead to the action. The point is: this book is bi-polar.

Overall: Although, definitely not for everyone and when finished reading, I was a little confused about what I thought of it, after really thinking about it, I found that I immensely enjoyed the story. With a fantastic story line, Swoon is exciting and will have you breathless the whole time you’re reading.

Grade: B+

[Alyssa · Rating 1 out of 5]

More reviews here: http://bookbybooksummer.blogspot.com/


I read in other reviews the number of people who've tried to like this book, and failed. I have to agree.

Finding this in 2009, I'd really wanted to read it. I spend good money on it, and the entire time I was reading I tried desperately not to throw it down or destroy the pages. I had such a wide variety of problems with this book that I'll admit that I feel terrible in listing them all. But I will.

1 - The characters were UNLIKABLE. To me, reading this book felt like a chore. I'd just jumped onto the Twilight series, and was still obsessed with Edward. Since then, I've grown out of my mania for him, but I can still find the little things I love about him - he's protective, he shows his love of Bella, he's got lots on his plate. For me, Sin was just a really bad imitation of all those dreamy guys out there, and although he had his human characteristics, (or male characteristics) I just found him unlikable and annoying. The whole "he's sexy" thing made me want to puke many times over.

Candice - Dice, which is a ridiculous nickname - was as plain as a piece of paper and she took up so many paragraphs just describing why she was allowed to go crazy over some dead guy. Honestly, that whole ordeal could've been summed up in about three pages - Miss Malkin took over a 30. I also disliked Dice's cousin and her boyfriend, the other cast of the characters nearly bored me into a deep slumber.

2 - The "paranormal" aspect, if you could call it that, was unexplained, uninteresting, and not needed. This could've been a story about a guy haunted by his past who had a terminal illness and only had months to live. He's afraid to fall in love, but does with a quirky, normal teenage girl who just happens to see through his facade. Sure, the story has been overplayed and rewritten, but I think Malkin's got the talent (at least some of it) that it takes to write something unique. Ultimately, what I'm getting at, is that she probably just included this ghostly scheme of things to catch a reader's eye - as I'd mentioned, Twilight had become such a huge phenomenon that year. I scanned through the rest of Malkin's work, but refused to open any book pages. Has she done any paranormal work before? From the looks of this book - no.

3 - Usually, I'm all for a book that will challenge a parent's opinion. These types of books get a family talking, and usually - hopefully - get the child to stand up for themselves in what they believe is right.
And yet, the amount of drugs, alcohol, sex and sexualities in this book turned me off. It's great o=to put "edge" into your book, but you need to know when to stop. Sometimes its great to do things the old fashioned way.
On that note - wasn't Sin from, like, "forever ago"? If he was, shouldn't he have thought pre-martial sex irregular? Shouldn't he have had a problem with it?

There are more issues, but this is a review, so I should point out the positive points.
...
....
Sorry. I can't do it.

[a · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really didn't like this book. It started out really well, with a near-death incident and an interesting voice. But it just went downhill from there. This is possibly the weirdest YA book I have ever read, and that is saying something. Why was it weird, you ask? RAMPANT SEX. That is basically the theme of the book. There are orgies and spontaneous orgasms and seductions... and none of it really had any point.

Okay, I'll start at the beginning. Our heroine, nicknamed Dice (short for Candice), has moved from NYC to Swoon, Connecticut. Her best friend is her gorgeous and very attractive cousin, Pen (short for Penelope) who falls out of a tree one day and is knocked out for a few moments. And when she awakens, Dice can tell that something is different (oh, I forgot to say, Dice is psychic), as it is not normal Pen behavior to give blow jobs in a lake in full view of others, and then try to drown the boy. As it turns out, she is possessed by some sort of sex demon/spirit/ghost thingy named Sin (short for Sinclair) who Dice eventually accidentally gives solid form in a failed attempt to exorcize him. And he then begins to wreak havoc on the carefully repressed upper-class Swoon society.

Anyway, Sin has a vendetta against the town of Swoon because they unfairly hung him for the murder of his fiance. He is set on destroying Swoon, never mind that the people who actually killed him died back in the eighteenth century. And his weapon of choice: lust. The crazy happenings that have been happening ever since Pen happened to fall out of that tree get even worse, and before you know it... I shall give you a list:
-Everyone is wearing red nail polish
-Stodgy librarian dons pink hearts
-There is an orgy at prom in which one girl cries "RAPE" and then ends up insane
-A psychic lady whom Dice asks for advice spontaneously climaxes
-Dice gets and orgasm from being spanked
-The mother of one of Dice's friends runs off with a lover

The other reason I didn't like this was the "love" storyline. Dice decides that she loves sin after speaking with him all of three times, and she hold firm to that notion even after Sin has sex with Pen and all of this other crap that I do not want to go into. Suffice to say, it is insulting to all of the female gender and did not make me think very highly of Dice.

Also, the characters were very flat. Dice didn't have any distinguishing qualities as a protagonist, and the secondary characters were two-dimensional. I will say, though, it drew me in with the mystery. And that is why it got two stars instead of just one. But once I was drawn in, none of it made any sense. I think that if Nina Malkin had gone for less of a love story and more of a suspense it would have been a lot better. But, alas.

I say, don't read it. But if you must, get it from the library.

[Natalie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hmm...where to begin? This is going to be a difficult review for me to write, because I just couldn't find anything I liked about Swoon (Except for the cover. Does that count?). I don't leave books unfinished very often, but unfortunately, I was not able to finish Swoon.

This is the first book I've actually not finished since I started blogging a year ago. I gave it my best shot: I read the first 250 pages, and then ended up skimming the rest of the book, but it took a lot of motivation for me to do even that. Nothing about the book clicked with me at all.

The idea was interesting. I'll give it that. I picked up Swoon in the first place because I thought the back cover sounded good. Unfortunately, I didn't care for the characters or the plot pacing, and the writing style was decent, but not enough to keep me turning pages.

I don't really know what else to say. I guess I'll leave it at this: I couldn't finish the book. You can take that into account when you're deciding whether or not to read this one. I do know that some other blogger have liked this book, and no one's died and made me the All-Knowing Book Goddess, so my opinion is, just that, my opinion.



In a Sentence

Did not finish.

[Elyse (ElyseReadsandSpeaks) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hahahaha oh man that was so much worse than I remember it being. I read this many years ago and although I remember finding it weird, I don't remember it being quite so awful. But oh, it was. It really, really was.

I will never understand how this got approved for YA nor how it got the green light for a sequel. A horny ghost inspiring the whole town to have sex with each other... spanking, orgies, a mom in daughter's cheerleading skirt riding the dermatologist, a gross dad cheering for his daughter's friend to "show her tits" ........ Really, I couldn't make any of this up.

And let's not forget that in the midst of all the sexcapades, Dice sings a song that moves everyone consisting of the lyrics, "roll the dice." So deep.

I also have zero clue what the whole Ruby storyline was about. I don't understand what happened to her or why Dice would periodically have conversations with Ruby's ghost in her room.

Dude. This book was so awful. And hilarious. I'd bump it up a star for how often I laughed during it, but I don't want anyone to misunderstand my rating. The one star rating is what this book deserves and I believe all of us who have read it are now bonded by this whackadoodle experience. Brethren of Swoon.

[Rabbit {Paint me like one of your 19th century gothic heroines!} · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review to come. This book wasn't amazing, but it was amusing. I wish it wasn't YA though.

[Rayne · Rating 1 out of 5]

****May contain spoilers ****

I decided to do my first review on this book because, first, after almost two years since I read it, I still can't get rid of the sour taste it left in my mouth and, second, because I was recently notified that a second installment to this series is coming out... on the date of my birthday. Since the universe has decided to make a joke out of me adding insult to injury, I decided to share with the world my views on this book titled Swoon.

I bought this book because of its cover, a mistake, I assure you, will never happen again. The cover is mysterious and alluring and it is fortified by an interesting premise that promises a new supernatural concept in a very much abused genre and a compelling, doomed romance. Souls seeking revenge, an exorcism gone wrong, a gutsy protagonist with psychic abilities, and a boy with an evil agenda and no interest in hiding his nefarious intentions. What was not to like? I was hoping this would be the story that would bring a new edge to an over-exploited genre that always ends up being more of the same. Well, I was very disappointed.

This story was executed poorly, the characters were impossible to like or to relate to and there wasn’t anything truly engaging in this book. I practically had to threaten myself to finish it, not because there was nothing going on, trust me, there were a lot of things going on, just the wrong kind of things.

Meet Candice, our protagonist. Since the beginning of the book, she is given a lot of baggage. Her best friend died, she is part of a very dysfunctional family, she has an ability she can’t understand and she is forced to live in a town in the middle of nowhere where she doesn’t fit in and with relatives she can barely stand. Add to that a very complicated first love and you have all the tools to emotionally and psychologically develop a strong protagonist throughout the story. The thing is, Candice doesn’t grow or mature at all in the story. In 400+ pages, she doesn’t even grieve her friend’s death or confront any of her problems head on. She doesn’t take responsibility for any of her actions or learns anything from her horrifying experience. You can’t even hope for her to develop her “special abilities” into something she can control to eventually help in the saving of her own behind, because it just doesn’t happen. In fact, she spends an entire chapter describing her latent abilities, knowing that they are not epileptic seizures as she had been diagnosed, and how she is sure that they are her special power, to later never even mention them again. She is, like any other dense and flat young adult female protagonist out there, just too deeply in love with an undeserving, bipolar douche to care about anything else, not even how despicable he and his actions are. There is even one scene in which she allows him to spank her in front of everyone. While he is in a date with someone else. And enjoys it, like there is nothing wrong with that.

The only redeeming quality this character possessed was her confidence in her average looks, which are usually the source of insecurity and much ranting and complaining in other books. Still, that was shadowed by her immature and infuriating approach at life and her situation.

The other secondary characters were flat and don’t even deserve being mentioned since they have absolutely no importance in the story other than to serve as pawn to Sin’s (love interest) “evil master plan”.

I was really looking forward to the romance in this book and how it would evolve since Sin is, from the get-go, the bad guy of the story. Tired of the too-good-to-be-true, godsend, unrealistically righteous male love interest, I was really interested in how this relationship would bloom. Well, it goes a little something like this: girl meets dead boy through psychic powers, boy possessing the body of another girl tells girl his sad story and his unquenchable thirst for revenge, poof! True,everlasting, pure love. Candice simply decides she loves him. That’s it. For no reason that I can understand because Sin simply used and played with her selfishly, slept with her cousin/new best friend/almost sister turning her into a sex addict, killed elderly people and threw the entire population of teenagers in town into a wave of rampaging hormones willing to throw orgies in any random living room (I'm not kidding, for some reason that was part of his evil master plan). He comes two hundred years after he was accused and hanged for the murder of his own lover and unborn child to a town in which, obviously, the people who once condemned him are nothing but a pile of bones, without a clue on who really killed her, and hellbent on taking revenge upon the descendants of even the lawyer who failed to defend him well. And he is willing to even use and sacrifice Candice to do it. I couldn’t feel sorry for him or his tragic past because the way he was portrayed throughout the book makes him one of the most hateful characters I have ever encountered in my years of reading. He then comes along and declares Candice the only light in his life. And then sleeps with her. And then disappears.

The prose of this book is nice, almost poetic, but unnecessarily complicated to the point you might need a thesaurus to be able to read it, which is a terrible contrast to the language used for the dialogue. There is a recurrent use of drugs and sexual themes in the book that, despite having a realistic hold since teenagers do speak about those things, eventually crosses the line and becomes overwhelming. The pace is not slow, but the events in the story are boring, uninteresting and just plain ridiculous. I wouldn’t say this is the worst book I’ve read in my life, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. It is a shame because this book had the potential to be a truly engaging, powerful and memorable experience for the reader. It should have focused on how the protagonist solved her emotional problems, how she broke with bad habits and bad relationships and survived all the bad things life threw at her and how she stood up powerful and brave even against the guy she loved. I wanted the protagonist to learn something, to grow, to be better, but no dice. Instead, the story is just about a chick following an undeserving, manipulative idiot like a love sick puppy, and the sequel promises to be more of the same.