Soul Screamers Special – Book Review: My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent

Title: My Soul to Take

Author: Rachel Vincent

Genre: YA – Fantasy/Romance

Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Publishing date: August 1, 2009
Paperback: 384 pages

Stand Alone or series: It is the first full length novel in the Soul Screamers series. The author also released a novella called My Soul to Lose, which is a prequel to the series and you can download for FREE here

Summary: 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…

Why did I read the book: I heart Banshees! Plus, the cover is totally lush – although, the girl should be, could be, you know, screaming!

Review:

Kaylee Cavanaugh is, on the surface, just you regular teenage girl: the kind that sneaks out of the house to go clubbing with her best friend Emma, for example. And who gets really excited when popular boy-athlete Nash asks her to dance. Unfortunately for Kaylee, this is when her deeply-buried secret decides to show its ugly face. They dance away, and then Kaylee starts to experience what she has been led to believe are panic attacks, which begin with overwhelming feelings of grief and melancholy followed by an urge to scream and scream and scream. This has happened before and the last time, the attack caused damage to glass and to the people around her and lasted for such a long time that her family saw fit to send her to a mental institution. Her brief institutionalizing had left its marks and Kaylee will do anything to avoid being sent there again – even if she has to contain a scream that wants out, at her own expense.

This time, the attack is triggered as she gets a glimpse of a girl who seems immersed in shadows but just when she is about to let go of the building scream, Nash takes her outside and manages to soothe her. The panic passes and she goes home. The next morning, she finds out that the girl has collapsed and died on the dance floor. Just like that – and now Kaylee thinks that she somehow predicted that death, a belief that becomes stronger when another teenage girl collapses and die at school, following a similar pattern: Kalyee feels the grief, the melancholy, the need to scream and then sees the shadow-engulfed girl. And again, Nash is around to calm her whilst at the same time being inexplicably at ease with the circumstances.

That raises questions: why is he being so nice to her? He is a popular jock ,a non-player that seems to go out with a lot of girls. Why the sudden interest? Does he have an agenda?

What Nash really is, is the most straight-forward person in her life. When everybody else – her uncle and aunt who have raised her; her father, who lives away and rarely visits – seems to be keeping secrets, Nash is the one person who will not lie to her. And the truth is that Kaylee is not human: she is a Bean Sidhe (or as it sounds, Banshee) – and so is he.

Traditionally speaking, Banshees are Irish female fairies who can predict death – and their scream is their mourning call. In My Soul To Take, Rachel Vincent takes the legend and makes it her own, departing from tradition and expanding the myth by not only creating a male counterpart, with different and less public powers hence their complete absence from the stories (wink, wink, Ms Vincent, well done) and by giving a larger purpose to her banshees: as Nash explains to Kaylee, her scream is a soul song that can keep the souls around, enough for them to say goodbye. His complementing power is to be able to direct the souls. A male and a female Banshee together, could potentially be really powerful if it wasn’t for their enemies, the Rippers and the Natural Order of Things – when it’s time for a person to go, nothing should stop it unless you are prepared to deal with the harsh consequences.

But Nash and Kaylee suspect that these kids who are dying and not supposed to, and they start to investigate and this path leads them to danger and to the powerful climax.

The story flows rather nicely from the Kaylee’s first suspicions about her powers to hers and Nash process of finding out what the heck is going on. The plot involving the Reapers, the Banshees and the dying girls was really interesting but to me, what makes this book is Kaylee’s journey of self –discovery. It is impossible not to sympathise with the girl, from her extreme fear of being really crazy to her relief at finding out that she isn’t, even if that means that she is not human; and then having to come to grips with powers that are both horrible and beautiful and with the truth about her family. Coming of age stories are at their best when the protagonists have to make hard choices and Kaylee has a few to deal with, dire consequences and all.

Plus, I really liked Nash and Kaylee. They are a good couple and they simply fit and work well together. I did think the transition from not-couple to couple was a bit abrupt though, especially taking into consideration Kaylee’s suspicions of his intentions to begin with. But by the end of the book, it was really nice and easy to see them as a girlfriend and boyfriend without any major angst.

The Bottom line is this: My Soul to Take is very, very good with a protagonist with unique powers and I am looking forward to following Kaylee in her journey of self-discovery.

Notable Quotes/ Parts: Every time that Kaylee was close to someone about to die and her Banshee powers came to the forefront. The description of the horrible feelings of grief and melancholy and then the scream she would let lose made for very powerful reading.

Additional Thoughts: make sure to pop back later when Rachel Vincent will be blogging with us about her inspiration for writing Kaylee and for a chance to win a copy of My Soul to Take!

Verdict:A sympathetic protagonist with unique powers in a genre awash with witches, werewolves and vampires and a nice romance storyline to boot.

Rating: 7 – very good

Reading Next: Rampant by Diana Peterfreund