Trashy and terribly addictive.
Genre: Y/A, Paranormal, Romance
No. of pages: 432
From Goodreads:
Earth, Fire, Air, Water – they have more power than you dream.
Ever since her ex-boyfriend spread those lies about her, Becca Chandler is suddenly getting all the guys—all the ones she doesn’t want. Then she saves Chris Merrick from a beating in the school parking lot. Chris is different. Way different: he can control water—just like his brothers can control fire, wind, and earth. They’re powerful. Dangerous. Marked for death.
And now that she knows the truth, so is Becca.
Secrets are hard to keep when your life’s at stake. When Hunter, the mysterious new kid around school, turns up with a talent for being in the wrong place at the right time, Becca thinks she can trust him. But then Hunter goes head-to-head with Chris, and Becca wonders who’s hiding the most dangerous truth of all.
The storm is coming . . .

This was so typically YA. It had so many of the tropes. But I did enjoy it somewhat. It fell into my guilty pleasure category like the Lux series from Jennifer L. Armentrout.
Cue damsels in distress. Cue a love triangle. Cue stubborn boys who treat girls badly. Cue hormone addled teenage boy brains. It had so many tropes I was rolling my eyes. But I also like bad sci-fi and horror movies – I get a delicious kick out of them, and so too did I get a kick out of ‘Storm.’
I was frustrated with all the testosterone being flung around at many points. The possessive nature of the love interests. And everyone seemed okay with putting their hands on Becca to stop her, hold her, it was all a bit misogynistic. That aside, it was also dramatic, and tension-filled like so many pop culture tv movies. It’s the type of thing I enjoy to read every now and then. A quick easy fun adventure.
With so many of the elements that usually annoy the heck out of me in a story, ‘Storm’ could have been a massive flop, but something about this worked… I was always eager to see what was going to happen next. Curiosity, pace and tension were constant throughout. I think if some of the tropes had been eliminated or satirised, I would be singing the books praises, instead, it hit a middle-of-the-road vibe for me. Enjoyable and interesting, engaging even, but not too original.
Told from dual perspectives of the ‘couple’ Becca and Chris, there was a heavy element of ‘tell’ and not ‘show.’
Beca annoyed me as a protagonist, she flip-flopped from one boy to another, always with some body part on her mind. It didn’t feel like she had much else going on except for all the beefcake circling her. She has her moments of stubbornness and empowerment which redeemed her character for me, but then she’d slip into a damsel in distress, or boy-crazy teen, and I was back to the eye-rolling.
Chris was aggravating, if it wasn’t for reading moments from his POV, I’d written him off completely. But he manages to pull a few rabbits out of the hat by displaying compassion and selflessness in between growling and getting all up in the faces of other males in Becca’s orbit.
Hunter was endearing. Charming. And then he fell prey to the possessive posturing too – seriously, I could feel testosterone dripping out of this book. There are a lot of unanswered questions about Hunter – even at the end I still did not get the resolution I was craving for – I’m guessing it will come in one of the following novels in the series. For the most part I’d have to say he was my favourite character. Whether he’s there just to add tension to the Becca-Chris relationship, or an actual viable option for Becca is still unclear.
Brigid’s writing is easy-going, and I read the book in a day. She manages to capture the frustrating teen boy nature perfectly. I literally wanted to reach my hand through the pages and throttle some of the characters. Many times. There are moments of swearing and bullying, and even moments of humour causing me to bark out loud.
As for predictability, I don’t know if I was having a good day or not, but I guessed the entire plot very early on, and even all the sub plots… so no surprises for me. But I still had fun.
It’s on the fence if I’d recommend this – I can see how some would find this derivative, and how others would love the teen angst and soap opera of it all. So if you love trashy paranormal romances – this one’s for you… if you like more intellectually challenging books, maybe skip this title.
Overall feeling: Overloaded on trashy teen drama!



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