Review: The Temptation

THE TEMPTATION (Kindred #1)

Alisa Valdes
Paranormal Young Adult
320 pages
HarperTeen
Available April 24th
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)

His touch was electric.
His eyes were magnetic.
His lips were a temptation....
But was he real?

After crashing her car on an empty highway, Shane is miraculously saved by Travis, a mysterious cowboy who walks out of nowhere. She is instantly attracted to him, and for the first time, she believes in “soul mates.” But Shane soon discovers that Travis is dead and that strict rules from the Underworld govern kindred spirits of different dimensions. Breaking these rules could destroy both their souls. And while Travis is almost impossible to resist, temptation proves to be the kindest enemy they encounter. 

MY THOUGHTS

For most of us who love reading, the ideal story is one that seeps beneath our skin and leaves the topography of our hearts forever changed by the shape of the character’s footprints as they’ve traveled through and left no piece of it untouched. A less than ideal reading experience is one where the characters and their lives leave little to no impression at all, instead our journey with them is marked by a fleeting curiosity and mild interest, allowing us to move on to the next book with relative ease as we forgo any deep emotional attachment. Unfortunately, The Temptation falls into the latter category, the relationship between Shane and Travis of the instant and inexplicably deep love variety that has us hoping with each page we’ll be given a more thorough look at the two of them so we might better understand their behavior. That more extensive character examination never comes however, and we remain passengers on a motorboat, skimming atop the waves a speed that prevents us from appreciating any of the beautiful details instead of slowly churning beneath them absorbing all the details.

Shane is a young woman difficult to distinguish from a myriad of other young adult heroines, a bit weak-willed when it comes to a good-looking boy (though some leeway must be granted given her age, as we all can surely remember how thoroughly impressive a handsome boy was to us as teenagers), and at times exhibiting a reduced mental capacity when we know she’s capable of so much more. She walks into danger despite being repeatedly told to keep her distance, and she is prone to mild bouts of panic at the mere thought of being parted from a boy she met only days previously. While we are told that she and Travis are soul mates of a kind, we ourselves never experience the spark of their chemistry as it travels along sensitive skin and are given only a basic history of what it means to be Kindred in this first installment, leaving us feeling as though Shane and Travis are but simulations, mimicking love without making us believe it’s real.

The Temptation is certainly a quick and easy read, and will likely appeal more to a younger audience perhaps less interested in character intricacies and complexities and more focused on simply a fast-moving paranormal story with a little romance mixed in. Those who devour a great deal of young adult literature and are more critical readers looking for something memorable and fresh to stand out amidst the masses will likely be disappointed by an all-too familiar relationship type.

Rating: 2.5/5