Book Review: Haven

TITLE: Haven
Book 1 in a new series
AUTHOR: Kristi Cook
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: fantasy, romance
SHORT PREMISE: A girl with visions gets sent to a magic school.
MY REVIEW: That premise I gave pretty much describes the book. She gets there, discovers everyone has gifts, falls in instant love with a guy who is basically Edward Cullen with a different name and not as sexist and of course he's a vampire.
The number one problem with Haven is that it is completely unoriginal. Emphasis on completely. Literally this book brings nothing new to the table. Magic school? Been done several times over and in better ways (see Harry Potter and Hex Hall). Girl falling for guy who turns out to be a vampire? Again, done several times (Twilight? Hello? Although at least this couple is somewhat tolerable). Girl in love with vampire learns it's her destiny to kill vampires? Done (see Buffy for a much better version of this). Then it has all the current YA tropes: plain girl gets hot guy. Instant love. Instant friends. Girl turns out to be uber special in the land of special people. Blah blah blah and I'm bored now.
I'm giving it more then one because this is the author's first book and there did seem to be some sort of plot in there that might (emphasis on MIGHT) lead to something more interesting in later books. The writing was also not bad for a first book and I did find the friends somewhat enjoyable even if they were totally stereotyped and underdeveloped. So maybe in the next book the author will have something more going on. Unfortunately she failed to make me care enough about these bland cookie cutter characters and therefore I will most likely not be bothering with the next book. Only check this out from the library if you're curious about it. Otherwise don't bother.
WHO SHOULD READ: Twilight fans, those not caring about lack of originality
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five magic schools