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From the Bookshelf of 2012 Slay the Read 2012 Paranormal Reading Challenge…

Crossroads (Crossroads Academy, #1)

J.J. Bonds

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Dec 30, 2011 Jessi rated it liked it

Shelves: vampires, romance, paranormal, young-adult

Originally posted at Otherwhere.co - Books. Movies. Reviewage. Awesomness.

Katia begins her new life at the elite Crossroads school in Vermont. Determined to do right by her über-powerful uncle Aldo, Katia tries to stay out of trouble and do only what she must. Of course nothing is that easy and Katia finds herself having to dig up answers and face her dark past. All while dealing with the socialite students of Crossroads and the ever confusing Nikolai.

As the story begins you know very little abo Originally posted at Otherwhere.co - Books. Movies. Reviewage. Awesomness.

Katia begins her new life at the elite Crossroads school in Vermont. Determined to do right by her über-powerful uncle Aldo, Katia tries to stay out of trouble and do only what she must. Of course nothing is that easy and Katia finds herself having to dig up answers and face her dark past. All while dealing with the socialite students of Crossroads and the ever confusing Nikolai.

As the story begins you know very little about Katia, other than she is dropped at Crossroads and clearly is new to this whole vamp thing. Plagued with dreams you know she has some underlying issue, but until about the last 80 pages, that’s about it. Katia is very slowly revealed and while by the end, you see where the clues were previously, it made it hard to connect with her in the beginning. In a lot of ways the world is revealed to the reader as it’s revealed to Katia.

Katia’s character was refreshing for the most part, she tried hard to be distant and tough but you could always see that she struggled with her “new” self. She didn’t like causing grief and her rebellious nature simply covered deep vulnerability. She didn’t act out to spite her parents or some other authoritative figure. Really she avoided it as much as she could, but trouble comes anyway.

Crossroads introduces us to the elitist group of blood vampires (those born into it), some of which have very bigoted perspectives of “made” vampires and even humans. While the vamp society here is clearly going for a more civilized approach, there is a ways to go. The council and the Linkuri, little more than introduced here is intriguing and as the series continues could definitely add a layer of interest to things. Especially with Katia being so connected through Uncle Aldo as well as her interest in joining the Linkuri enforcement.

Regardless of what paranormal activity abounds, high school seems to be the same. You have the same cliques, the same hierarchy, the same boring teachers, and of course the same Russian-vampire-MMA instructor-cute, boy. Katia’s need to re-invent herself lands her in training with Nikolai, one of the elite vamps with an annoying entourage. While Katia’s intentions at first are innocent, we all know where sweaty hand-to-hand combat training leads.

I spent a good chunk of this book, wondering where it was all going. I can appreciate a book that doesn’t do chapters and chapters of detail, however, I felt at times I really didn’t have enough here. Short on exposition you have to pick up clues as to what this world is as you go along. There is no up front world building, per se and while there is a more complete picture by the end, it hampered my ability to get into the story. Once I hit the last third of the book, I was finally in. There were some unexpected twists and turns and enough of Katia’s and Nikolai’s characters were revealed for me to connect and root for them. The set-up for the series is definitely decent and I am curious to see what parts Aldo, Anya and even Viktor will play.

Crossroads was a fun read and a solid start to this debut series from J.J. Bonds. ...more

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Jan 01, 2012 Jessica marked it as to-read

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From the Bookshelf of 2012 Slay the Read 2012 Paranormal Reading Challenge…

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2012 Slay the Read 2012 Paranormal Reading...