Reborn

"<b>Note: spoilers for the plot of <i>The Wanderers</i> present</b><br/><br/><i>Reborn</i>, the second novel in <i>The Wanderers</i> series by Jessica Miller, picks up where <i>The Wanderers</i> left off. Ella has returned to her parents’ house, where she is spending the summer with her family, attempting to deal with the ramifications of her discoveries and losses in the last novel. Trying to cope with the recent deaths of her best friend and boyfriend is a big enough challenge. The pressure of understanding and accepting her new identity as a powerful half-vampire with a great destiny is not what she needs right now. All she wants is to be normal and to fade into the background. It’s hard to do that when your father insists that you can’t step foot out of the house without a slew of guardians to accompany you. When her parents decide to send her to an academy for special students like her, she thinks maybe she can take this chance to start fresh, be normal, and learn more about her society. Hamilton Hill can be her new beginning. Things don’t happen exactly as planned.<br/><br/> Between being the new girl with a noticeable blue streak in her hair, the screaming nightmares, and the possible ghost sightings, she’s afraid she’s going crazy, and is constantly singled out as an outcast. Add to that the worst roommate possible, her brother attending the same school, a hot headmaster, and a “good guy” that’s surprisingly mean to her, Ella would like the earth to swallow her up. But that’s not the way things go. Ella needs to find a way to fit in and learn more about herself, and the people surrounding her. When the threat of Jack resurfaces, Ella must recognize the signs around her and take action to protect the ones she loves. She can’t deal with more losses. But when the bad guy does show up, he throws another wrench into Ella’s life, one that she’s not sure how to process.<br/><br/> My reactions to this novel were a bit mixed, which is why I settled on a three star rating in the end. The beginning of the book was very slow and was hard for me to get past. Once Ella arrived at Hamilton Hill and things started rolling, I didn’t want to put the book down. But before that, I felt like I was trudging through. I think part of it was that I was feeling the loss of Tristan along with Ella. He was my favorite character in the previous novel, so his death was disappointing. Having an absence of him (except in a few dreams) probably added to my feeling that the story was dragging. When Ella got to the school, we were introduced to a new cast of characters and I felt his loss much less. I became more intrigued with Aidan and Roman, and the other cast of characters in Rhode Island. The story in this part of the book would be a solid four stars for me, as I really enjoyed it.<br/><br/> I feel that can’t write a complete review without noting that the end put me off quite a bit. After all that she’s been through <spoiler>with Roman</spoiler>, how is it that Ella’s just going to pack up and go off to Ireland, without saying a word about it to him? On what amounts to a rumor from a very untrustworthy source? I really didn’t agree with Ella’s choice on this one. Although I very much love the character involved, I don’t think she should leave without so much as a goodbye. <br/><br/> As before, there exist some critical flaws that interfere to some extent with the potential of this novel being realized. As I mentioned, the beginning was very slow in pace and didn’t hold my interest as much as I would have liked. There were a few things that were not explained or tied in very well. For instance, one of Ella’s new powers is mentioned when it develops, and then not really brought up again. Is she even trying to learn to control that one? Or is she just deciding that it’s more useful to block that power instead of trying to use it to her advantage? The other flaws that I noticed were primarily technical—misspellings, awkward grammar, wrong word choices and extraneous capitalization. The errors were not frequent enough to really detract from the work for me, but they might for some.<br/><br/> Overall <i>Reborn</i> was an enjoyable paranormal romance novel. If you enjoyed <i>The Wanderers</i> I would absolutely suggest you continue Ella’s story. I know I’m anxious to find out where things go from here.<br/><br/><b><i>This book was obtained freely from the author, Jessica Miller, in exchange for an honest review.</i></b><br/>"

"I read the whole series but haven't really explored much outside of Jaymin Eve. "