Book Review: The Mark

TITLE: The Mark
AUTHOR: Jen Nadol
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: Paranormal, drama
PREMISE: Cassie has the odd ability to see a light around a person when they are going to die that day.
MY REVIEW: I tried to be fair to this book as it was a debut and the author's first novel. So I'll say this: the writing is competant and it is a rather interesting idea so she does have potential. Unfortunately that's all the book kept being: an interesting idea that never went anywhere.
Part of the problem is that Cassie herself is the most passive female character I've read about in awhile (she even gives Bella Swan a run for her money, she's that bad). Seriously, the whole book is her going "oh I have this gift, oh woe is me, oh why me?", then she literally does nothing with it. When she finally goes "oh, maybe I should help people" she goes about it in stupid ways, and then when she fails, goes back to not doing anything about it. Whine, angst, don't do anything. That's all she did throughout the book. It was very annoying and made it hard for me to get into this.
Don't get me started on the "romance" with Lucas either. That totally came out of no where and then ended out of no where as well. Add to that that characters aren't fleshed out that much and that not much of anything really happens beyond her having this gift...it just made for one thankfully short boring book. If the author is planning on making this a series (which from the ending I have a feeling she is) then she needs to make Cassie actually DO something besides whine and mope about her gift and date random hot guys because otherwise this will get no where fast. But to be fair, I do see potential for a series just don't make it as boring as this first book.
MY RATING: Two out of Five clovers

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