Rating: 3.5 Stars

When I went into Spark, I was 100% sure I would love it. Yes, 100%. Not even 99.9%. I devoured Storm in a matter of hours and after seeing such a huge string of glowing reviews for this book, I was confident that for once I wouldn't be the Black Sheep. Well, I was (unfortunately) quite wrong. I loved Spark, but ultimately, there was just something missing from it to make it a truly phenomenal novel.

First and foremost, I have to admit that I thought Gabriel was an extremely well-written character. I could feel his loneliness, his desperation, and his confusion seeping through every page and once again, Brigid Kemmerer proves her talent in writing impeccable male POVs and realistic family dynamics. While I had already fallen in love with the Merrick brothers in Storm, I truly grew to appreciate Michael, Nick, and, of course, Gabriel. Plus, while I hated Hunter after Storm, I was glad that we were able to see a different side of him in this one which I really liked. Even Chris made his small appearances with Becca which were great, so once again, this is a family I am head-over-heels in love with.

Layne, our female protagonist of Spark, is also an incredible heroine. She is intelligent, strong, and beautiful without trying to be. I think overall, Layne is much more likable character than Becca is, simply because she's the goody-two-shoes while Becca is more feisty. Still, I really liked both girls and I could understand Layne's tortured past and home life just as well as I could Gabriel's. Yet, their romance never won me over. For one, it was the extremely overdone and typically cliched bad-boy-falls-for-geek-math-tutor story line. While I didn't mind this too much, what I did mind was that I couldn't really feel for these two. I loved them as individual characters and I think their interactions together were sweet and they obviously understand one another very well, but I wasn't invested in their relationship at all. Plus, Layne isn't the type of girl I think anyone would expect Gabriel to fall for and unfortunately, Kemmerer was unable to really make me hop on their boat. I think compared to the sweet romance between Chris and Becca, I have to admit I was a tiny bit disappointed with the love story in this one.

Yet another aspect of this novel that disappointed me was the lack of action in it. While the plot line of Storm revolves around the Guides, Spark is a much more mellow tale focusing on Gabriel’s character development and only hinting at a future clash with the Guides in the next installment. Thus, this unfortunately read like one of the many in-between novels which only serves to set up the plot of the next novel. In addition to that, I found the characterization of Layne’s parents, amongst a few other qualities of this story, to be extremely unrealistic. In my opinion, they were simply too evil and cartoon-ish to be real.

What really made me dislike Spark though, was the lack of character development. Gabriel is hot-headed and he's constantly just a giant, raging mess of angst. Seriously, he slams doors, he runs ten miles, he yells, he punches people, he fights back. It's always constant angst, and while I understood it, after awhile it began to become annoying. Gabriel goes through a lot of experiences in this novel, especially with his brothers, and I wanted him to learn from them and become a better person who wasn't constantly fueled by his emotions, but even at the end, I just don't think he was. Yes, he gained mastery over his powers, but what about over himself? I still feel as if Gabriel could have grown and developed a little more in this one and the fact that I didn't see that as much as I would have liked was upsetting.

Overall though, Spark is a great novel - I'm not refuting that. It has so much depth and the Merrick Brothers are truly phenomenal. While it lacked a lot of action, which I missed from Storm, and I wasn't totally invested in every aspect of it, I think most readers will love this. I, however, think I preferred Storm, but I can't wait for the next installment in this series either! :)

You can read this review and more on my blog Ivy Book Bindings.