YA Novelties

4.5 Stars

Check this review out at our blog!

Even though I already predicted how the story will play out, it was still a really good read. There were a lot of twists in this novel that you don't want to miss.

At first I disliked Sophie for being such a rhymes-with-witch, but then I felt sorry for her. In a way when someone acts the way Sophie Price does, you kind of have to feel a bit bad for them because they don't have any real friends and no one to care for them, at least no one that they know of. Except in novels and on TV, the spoiled, mean people usually have that one person who is usually their servant who cares about them. In this book it was Pembrook. Although we didn't get to see much of Pembrook, the parts about him made him seem pretty awesome.

What drew me into reading this book was definitely the summary (see above). And because I have never read a YA novel that didn't have a romance aspect to it, I was intrigued by this book that claimed that it did was not a love story. But it actually was a love story, but I wasn't at all disappointed about that because once you got the love part of the novel, you were already rooting for Ian and Sophie. Even though I was rooting for Sophie and Ian, what happened to Spencer? We met Spencer at the beginning of the book and it seem like he and Sophie were going to be a thing, but NO! The weird thing is that the more Ian was featured in the book, the more I forgot about Spencer... :/ But I would love to read a book on Spencer.

The majority of the novel takes place in Africa and I liked how the setting was important to the book. You know how sometimes a novel takes place in an uncommon area, but it seem like the novel could've taken anywhere and you even forgot where it was suppose to take place anyway?...Yeah I hate when that happens! But it didn't happen in this novel! Maybe it was just me but it seem like some of the things from the book seem to be alluding to the Kony disasters in Africa. hmmm...

Some advice: don't start this book if you can't finish it in a day! I started this novel pretty late at night, so like 10pm-ish and I couldn't stop reading it! Vain was one of those novels where you knew you had to do something else, like sleep, but you just couldn't until you finished the book. I finally finished the novel around 2am, but I had school the next morning, so I went to school on about 4 hours of sleep. BUT it was time well spent!

My only (small) complaint was that the ending seem a bit unrealistic and rushed compared to the rest of the story, but it was still a great story!

-Jenny @ YA Novelties