Review: My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent (Re-read) ~ Once Upon a Bookcase

My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent - Being a teenager just got much more complicated. There is something very wrong with Kaylee Cavanaugh: 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 enjoy having caught the attention of the hottest guy in school. But a normal date is hard to come by when Nash seems to know more about the need to scream than she does. And when classmates start dropping dead for no apparent reason, only Kaylee knows who'll be next. From Amazon UK

WARNING! This is a re-read review for the Soul Screamers Reading Challenge. Although this is the first book in the series, I will be discussing it in relation to my first read and the later books in the series. There will be major spoilers for ALL books! You may read my original, spoiler-free review of My Soul to Take, but do not read any further if you don't want this series spoiled for you.

As regular readers of my blog will know, I have recently fallen completely head over heels in love with Rachel Vincen't Soul Screamers series. However, I wasn't the biggest fan originally; I was a little disappointed, having read Vincent's Shifter novels, that My Soul to Take wasn't as fast-paced and exciting. My original review is pretty positive, because I didn't want to mention my minor disappointment through comparing, and even end the review telling people that My Soul to Take isn't like the Shifters series so people don't compare. However, everything postive I say in my original review was the truth, not a lie - I did really enjoy the book then, and I did now.

Re-reading My Soul to Take, I can kind of see other reasons why I was a tiny bit disappointed. Compared to the later books in the series, My Soul to Take is slower. In comparison, there are conversations that take a while to tell us the info we need, it takes a while to figure things out, and there is also no real villian that we get to see until the end. In later books, we always have someone to dislike - a hellion, a mara, a incubus - but in My Soul to Take, being the first book, the villian is mostly unknown as Kaylee has to find everything out about who she is, right from the very beginning, which makes it harder for her to work out what's going on - because she simply has no idea. In later books, she knows more, she's a more experienced bean sidhe, and is able to theorise what the problem is, and how to attempt to fix things. Because of eveything she has to learn, I think it's inevitable that the first book would be a little slow.

However, what was very cool with this re-read is the fact that I have read it before and all the other books. Let me explain. I already knew that is was Kaylee's Aunt Val who made a deal with a hellion via a reaper. Knowing this, I could see her behaviour for what it really was - more like guilt and regret - rather than what Kaylee thought her behaviour was about - grief.

It was also really, really strange yet interesting to see the beginning's of Kaylee's and Nash's relationsip again. After reading My Soul to Keep, I've been pretty anti-Nash because of what we find out about what he does under the influnce of Demon's Breath. However, I like him in this book! Which was really odd, but really cool - he is a nice, good guy, and things were so good between him and Kaylee! He just loses his way when he is accidentally introduced to the drug. Which was Kaylee's fault. Through this re-read, my opinion has changed. I still think it's probably good that Kaylee and Nash broke up, but not so much because Nash hurt Kaylee beyond repair, but because Kaylee was the cause of everything going wrong for him. I finally see exactly where Tod is coming from when he says that they're not good for each other. It's best that they heal separately, and Sabine will do anything for Nash, and is ultimately better for him.

I loved meeting Tod again for the first time too! Oh, to see the change in him, even in this book. His interest is obvious! Maybe that's because I know where ther books lead, but he clearly likes Kaylee. Even in that first meeting. It's just wonderful to see him being anti-helping, but how Kaylee convincs him to, and that's it. You can pretty much see the moment it happens. And although she and Nash just got together and are happy right now, it's great to see the beginning of what I believe is going to be a brilliant relationship between those two. Oooh, happy happy!

I absolutely loved re-reading this book! Though I still thought it was a little slow, it was great to rediscover everyone and pick up on things in relation to what happens in later books. I highly recommend a re-read!

My original review.