My Soul To Take by Rachel Vincent

Title: My Soul To Take	Loved it	Graded
Author: Rachel Vincent
Genre: Paranormal
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Elements: Banshees, Death
Series: Book 1 in Soul Screamers series

Something is wrong with Kaylee Cavanaugh. She doesn't see dead people, but... She senses when someone near her is about to die. And when that happens, a force beyond her control compels her to scream bloody murder.

Literally.

Kaylee just wants to be a normal girl, basking in the joy of having caught the attention of Nash, the hottest guy in school.

But getting through a first date isn't easy when he seems to know more about Kaylee's need to scream than she does. And when classmates start dropping dead for no apparent reason, only she knows who'll be next...

There were some good points, and a lot of bad points about My Soul To Take. Firstly, the plot was interesting. There was a lot of potential for it to grow into something truly astounding. The first third was very promising. A girl starts uncontrollable screaming whenever someone is about to die. Now it seems like people are dropping dead for no reason. While the premonition factor has been played many times, the part about screaming definitely hasn't. With a plot like that, what could go wrong? Instead, it fell flat and just became one of many generic paranormal stories around, and boy was that a huge disappointment.

The protagonist, Kaylee, doesn't have a lot of personality. To all appearances, she's like a charity case, living in her uncle's house. Her aunt and uncle sent her to the mental hospital when she started screaming the first time. Her younger cousin, Sophie, is a snarky b*tch who exists solely to be the wrench in any potential relationship Kaylee might have.

Now when Kaylee finally meets Nash, the jock she's been crushing on, things seem to turn out for the better. Her personality finally shows, but it only appears when she's being snarky to Nash and then disobeying her uncle and aunt's house rules. And Nash, Kaylee's love interest wasn't even remotely appealing. He was broody, he "had to follow Kaylee because her voice called him (wtf?)" and he definitely didn't act like the jock he supposedly was. He's what my friend would call an "emo kid": dark, broody and trying to act all mysterious. Not like a jock at all.

Now, I don't know about you, but
1) If the guy I've been crushing on for a long while suddenly talks to me, I'll be nice to him, no matter what he wants.
2) I'll be suspicious, and then creeped out if he says that he was drawn to my voice and thus had to follow me to a club. What, didn't he notice me for the past years we were in the same school?
3) After hearing a "truth" from him, I wouldn't just brush off my past as a lie and believe him.
4) And worse, I wouldn't be making out with him after only 4 days and acting like we've known each other for years, flaunting the relationship, disregarding rules and so on. It just makes me seem desperate and frankly, silly and nauseating.

It just went downhill from there. There were a few plot holes that I was willing to overlook, but not when two of them occured within five pages of each other. And the plot arcs could be seen from the start. It could be the use of the same wording and phrases, but I guessed the whole plot from the start.

I'm not sure what's more disappointing: the fact that the characters were flat and not much made me care about what happens to them, or that an interesting plot was ruined by such trivial things. Nonetheless, My Soul To Take's worth a try. If you're interested in reading Kaylee's backstory, here it is.