*Warning: a couple of brief plot spoilers are in this review*
I won a copy of this book from another LibraryThing program
that I am enrolled in called Members Giveaway. It’s sort of similar to the
Early Reviewers program in that you still have to go through the list of books
offered for that month’s batch and request the ones you want, but it’s
different in that in some cases, the recipient has to provide a review in
exchange for the book. I consider that requirement a win-win since I was going
to review it anyway. lol I never request books in either of LibraryThing’s
programs for funsies or leisurely reading; every book that I request from
LibraryThing is for the purpose of reviewing it on here. I like both programs;
there’s such a wide array of books to choose from that it would be hard not to
find at least 3 books per month that you want to read. Enrollment in the
program is free, just make sure that you read the description carefully and
fulfill any requirements that the author may ask of you (providing a review,
having a certain amount of books in your library, etc.) before requesting any
copies of a book. Anyway, that’s Members Giveaway in short. Let’s move on to
the book.
Soul Cutter is the debut novel by Lexa Cain. This young
adult horror/romance book mainly centers around 17-year-old Elan, a young woman
with a few dark secrets who debunks fake psychics and ghosts for a living. A student
from the school of logic, she has no faith in the supernatural, despite the
visions and dreams suggesting otherwise. When she has to travel to Egypt to
find her estranged mother after she goes missing, however, the situations—and people—she
encounters question and rock her beliefs in everything she thought she knew. She
also meets 18-year-old Ramsey, a Lebanese boy with a few dark secrets and on a
quest of his own. As the two reluctantly join forces to find Elan’s mother,
they come into a few realizations about each other…and themselves…in the
process. If gore isn’t for you, then neither is this book. You definitely
shouldn’t eat while reading this one.
That was the closest to a synopsis that I could get without
spoiling a lot of major things. I’m still tweaking how I do my book reviews, so
bear with me. Anyway, this book was very fast-paced. Lots of action and
intrigue, so if that’s your kind of book then Soul Cutter won’t disappoint. You
think that Elan has to be in her mid-twenties or something at first because of
how much mature she acts in comparison to her peers, then you find out that she’s
only 17 herself. Because of the dark secret in Elan’s past, she had to grow up
very quickly and this shows in the story because she’s very intelligent and
unfortunately very jaded about the world and the people in it. *Brief spoiler
alert* I liked that the real feelings
and fears that follow a rape victim were explored here. I hate when I read a
book and even though a character is raped, she still carries on as if nothing
happened, with none of the fears, thoughts or feelings that most real-life victims
are unfortunately left with afterward. I also really liked that as the story
progressed, Elan came into some healthy realizations about herself and despite
the ever-present sense of danger lurking, she still somehow came out of the
situation healed. She wasn’t a weeping willow and I appreciated that about her
character, even though it clashed, as it often does, with the Middle Eastern
mentality of what women should be like.
I liked the array of characters that
were in this story, although I wish they could have been explored a bit further. I think Miss Cain did a great job of employing an urban
Egyptian myth and bringing it to the forefront of the story without making it
overly campy. There was the normal skepticism, the normal “that’s the old folks
tale” present, but over the course of the story it became larger than life as
the reality that it was true came about. I was also pleasantly surprised to
find that the urban myth that haunted much of the book ended up falling prey to
false impressions and assumptions. It goes to show that nothing’s safe from an
assumption. I enjoyed that this story was as much Ramsey’s as it was Elan’s, as
they both had some things to learn and accept along the way. They’re both more
mature than their years and have had to learn more than a couple of ugly
truths. I also liked how everything ultimately served to drive the larger plot
of the story, from Ramsey’s dark secret to the disappearance of Elan’s mother,
two things that would not normally have a connecting link. Yet they were both
integral to the progression of the story and helped to push it along.
However, a bit of the action was so fast, it took on a bit
of a frenetic pace and was a bit of everywhere. My mind would be racing to try
and picture everything as I was reading it, but it had a very fast, jittery
sort of energy about it. It was kind of hard to figure out exactly how much was
going on at once towards the end of the book, because so much was happening all
at the same time. I’d slow down just a touch in certain parts and make sure the
reader’s still with the story. The story wasn’t able to progress as fluidly as
it should have because it kind of jumped from place to place quite quickly. I also
didn’t like the 180 flip that Elan did concerning Ramsey about halfway through
the book; she went from fighting a simple attraction to him to feeling like he
was her entire reason for surviving. It was a bit sudden to me. I was left with
a lot of unanswered questions, so I was relieved to hear that a sequel to Soul
Cutter is on the way. The battle between Ali and Ramsey felt unfinished, and I hope
that’s explored further in the next book. There were a few holes in what the
Soul Cutter turned out to be and the limits of his powers, something else I hope
is fully resolved in the next novel. There were a few grammatical errors here
and there, but they weren’t so bad that they took away from what was happening
in the story. All in all, I enjoyed it and found it to be a great debut for
Lexa Cain. Once I was pulled in, I was intrigued to see how everything would
resolve itself. YA and horror aren't the genre I usually read, but I didn’t walk away
disappointed. I look forward to the sequel of Soul Cutter. This would be safe for older teens to read as I think some of the more gory parts would be too much for tweens and younger teens. There's some cursing, but nothing sexual beyond one kiss and a bit of tension.
If you're interested in picking up this book, here's where you can get it:
Smashwords/Kindle
Rating:
