My 7th grade niece and her friends LOVE this YA paranormal romance and urged me to read it, so I did. There's some cool originality to it - the narrator is a popular boy in small-town who knows it's small town. Enter Lena, the new girl with mystery surrounding her - she lives with her uncle, the town's shut-in/bogey man. Ethan is having dreams of Lena - could it be love? The magical elements are awesome - there's a particularly cool library - but there was a major flaw that I found distracting - when Ethan and Lena have visions of the past, they are omniscient. If you're observing something, how can you know what the person you're observing is feeling? And after 560 pages, to not have the central question answered left me miffed.

"It's just a thing in my family. The women keep the family name even after they're married. It's always been that way."

Marian turned the page, and looked at Lena. "It's often the case in bloodlines where the women are considered particularly powerful."

on the way to String Cheese Incident concert