Meant to Be
(Saving Angels #1) by Tiffany King
YA Paranormal
Romance
Rating: 3 Stars
Krista Miller feels like she has lived her entire life
in a glass box with her every emotion on display. She can’t help feeling like a
defect as her sensitivities have made her socially inept and without any real
friends; the one exception being the boy that visits her each night in her
dreams.
Krista’s emotions are put to the test when a move to
California triggers a devastating change to her fantasy world. The nightly
comfort that the boy provides has now become a recurring nightmare as he is
taken from her by an unseen force.
Struggling to appear normal, Krista enrolls in a new
school and finds it to be nothing like she thought. Her new life is sent
spiraling out of control from a strange connection with a boy, Mark, who claims
to know all her secrets.
As Krista begins to explore the emotions that Mark
evokes in her, secrets about their mysterious past and their predestined
purpose threatens to separate them just when they have found each other
My Thoughts: This
is one of those books I have a love hate relationship with. It’s mostly because
of the romance bit (I’ll get to that later). Krista is a super sensitive young
girl who moves into a new town and believes the only way to hide herself is to
go to a private school where everyone has a high IQ (Judging much?? I went to a
public school and find that a bit insulting). While she is there she literally
meets the man of her dreams. Drama ensues and things happen (Don’t you just
hate spoilers?).
Krista is an okay character. I can’t
sympathize with her because she isn’t really a smart person. She loves books
and has a high IQ but she has no street smarts. For instance saying that only
smart people go to private school. Public schools have advanced classes and no
one gets picked on or singled out for being in them. In fact people are having
way too much fun being teenagers to care.
Here is the romance bit. How does
anyone find these kinds of relationships acceptable? If I had a guy who became
way too protective of me I would tell him to get his crap straight or I will
kick him to the curb. Then there is the woman getting physically sick without
the guys being around? This is high school and they are teenagers, they can’t
be together all the time. It doesn’t sound like love to me, it sounds like
obsession. I just can’t support relationships like that. It’s Twilight all over
again.
Whatever happened to building
relationships? Now it’s, “Hello, I just literally met you but I am deeply and
madly in love with you.” No one experiences that while they are in high school.
You may have feelings toward someone at that age and possibly grow up and get
married but ask any of those real people and they will say they didn’t immediately
know the moment they spotted each other.
Overall, I love the story and I love
the idea but I hate the characters and I hate the romance. The characters have
no individual identity. They are the couples. I hate giving reviews like this
but just because it’s a young adult novel does not mean it has to have immature
relationships. I highly recommend someone do some research on abusive
relationships and then steer clear of these types of relationships.
Cover: 4/5
Writing: 3/5
Characters: 1/5
Overall Score:
Mayra Calvani writes fiction and nonfiction for children and adults and has authored over a dozen books, some of which have won awards. Her stories, reviews, interviews and articles have appeared on numerous publications such as The Writer, Writer’s Journal, Multicultural Review, and Bloomsbury Review, among many others. When she’s not writing, reading, editing or reviewing, she enjoys walking her dog, traveling, and spending time with her family. Represented by Serendipity Literary.
