Book Review: Blood Magic

TITLE: Blood Magic
Book 1 in the Blood Journals
AUTHOR: Tessa Gratton
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: magic, urban fantasy, drama, romance
SHORT PREMISE: A girl discovers a dark use for blood.
MY REVIEW: Silla has just discovered her father may not be as crazy as everyone else believed because it turns out that magic actually exists. New boy Nick helps her and her brother figure out the magic without realizing it's deadly consequences.
Blood Magic is a debut book and for a debut book, it's not bad. I've certainly read worse. The idea of the blood magic was very interesting and I liked that the author was not afraid to go as dark as she went with the magical consequences. I also mildly liked Silla and her character. HOWEVER, the writing and characters in this don't do the book any favors. Because this is a first book, the author does many of the first book mistakes: instant love with no developement, stereotyped characters in high school, non-fleshed out main characters (though Silla and her brother did have something going for them so it wasn't a complete loss), and the ever annoying alternating pov. Seriously, what was the point of that? You could have done the entire book in Silla's pov without losing anything major and it would of made it better because frankly Nick was annoying and a jerk. I found myself skipping his povs because he didn't add anything useful and I found him irritating.
It was a decent effort, don't get me wrong. But the author needs to work on prose and needs to not bother with alternating povs next time. She also needs to develop characters and relationships better. With some work this author could be very good. But her first book is just okay. It never really got into that OMG!I love this phase.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of magic books, you don't mind alternating povs
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five dead rabbits