The Summoning (Darkest Powers, Book 1) by Kelley Armstrong

         Ok, I have been on a bit of a YA binge here and I can see it continuing in the future, but a few years ago I went through this really creepy book phase and read a ton of books about ghosts and zombies and murderers and stuff and I read the Summoning then, but then I went through this phase where I got really scared of everything and could only read happy books after that. But! I gave it another try and I don't know how I could stop reading this series

          My name is Chloe Saunders and my life will never be the same again.

         All I wanted was to make friends, meet boys, and keep on being ordinary. I don't even know what that means anymore. It all started on the day that I saw my first ghost - and the ghost saw me.

         Now there are ghosts everywhere and they won't leave me alone. To top it all off, I somehow got myself locked up in Lyle House, a "special home" for troubled teens. Yet the home isn't what it seems. Don't tell anyone, but I think there might be more to my housemates than meets the eye. The question is, whose side are they on? it's up to me to figure out the dangerous secrets behind Lyle House...before its skeletons come back to haunt me.

Click to view the book on Amazon: The Summoning

         The story starts with Chloe as a normal, if slightly underdeveloped, high school but on the day she gets her period she gets bombarded by a ghost at school, and this ghost being particularly gruesome sent her into hysterics, and so the school restrained and sedated her and sent her off to the hospital where they tested her and then sent her off to Lyle House. Lyle house has 2 other girls and three boys living there and all have problems.

         I thought it was a bit boring leading up to Chloe getting to Lyle House. I understand the importance of those first chapters, showing her life before, setting up the fact that the powers occur at the onset of puberty and all that, but I just wanted to get to the part where she meets the other crazy kids. I also didn't like Chloe as a character in the beginning, I thought she was a bit judgmental but as the book (and series) continue I started to like her more and more. As for the other characters, I liked Simon and Liz from the start and, of course, I really didn't like Tori, I thought she was a total bitch. As for Derek, I had mixed feelings about him but it is such a good book, and it is really interesting how she sees and interacts with the dead, especially when she raises them.

          Read the book, then come back and read the rest of this!

         Favorite character would have to be Derek, because as mean as he can be, he still has the best at heart for those people he considers as a part of his pack. Like how he tricks Simon into escaping by using Chloe as an excuse. It was kind of a dick move on his part to manipulate them like that but they both did need to get out of Lyle House and as you find out they were going to be moved to possibly be terminated when they didn't prove as obedient as the scientists who are experimenting on them want them to be. What really changed my mind about Derek was when it was obvious that he knew what all the girls in the house thought about him and that he was embarrassed by it. And then when he went through his first partial transformation, the poor guy. It just seemed like such a horrible thing to go through, but I am happy that he did because I really like a lot of the traits that his werewolf genes give him, but I am glad it happened because it allowed Chloe and him to bond in a way that they hadn't done before.

         Rae kind of annoyed me. I thought she was nice and I liked how close she and Chloe became, but she seemed kind of fake. And I really didn't like how she bad talked almost all of the other characters, and for some reason it really rubbed me the wrong way when she was all "I have the power of fire." I know she actually did, but it seemed like she was jumping on the bandwagon and I feel like as a character she didn't really deserve a power.

         I really liked Simon. Maybe that was why Rae bothered me so much, because she kept saying that Simon was really stuck up, but he didn't seem that way and when I read about him. He seemed like a nice guy who just happened to fall into the wrong situation and because he was out of his element and alone he stuck by his foster brother. If I was in that situation I would cling to my brother too.

         I thought this was really interesting and a great start to a series. After finishing this I went to amazon and bought the other two in the series right away and finished them that same night. I am scared of zombies and dead people and death, but Chloe was too and that made me more comfortable with the subject matter. It was really good. I gave it 5 out of 5 stars!