An absolutely brilliant debut. Blunt and punchy writing weaved perfectly with a passionate young love story - but don't be fooled, any hint of it leading into sentimentality is beaten down swiftly with a well-placed stick of sarcasm, wit or hilarity. Told from the angles of the two leads - Nicky and Gable, teenage sweethearts - the emotion and heartbreak of their youth is told honestly and you can genuinely see both stories from very different perspectives. But it doesn't stop there.
Being an urban fantasy, it lives initially on the edge of a whole other layer of New York, eventually plunging into the deep end with secret and seedy happenings for the Outcasts (those with magical or otherworldy ability/origin) trying to just get on with their lives. The Guardians are the watchers, there to help and there to protect, and I liked the fact this particular set of Guardians weren't all brash superhero types - they were more rejects of the rejects (but was more bad-ass, as the book suggests).
There wasn't too much or too little of anything, it was well balanced, with a supporting cast of well-rounded, likeable (and unlikeable!) characters. To be honest, you could see this happily transfer to the big, or small, screen, as the energy and humour would be enough to capture many a viewer in no time. I haven't enjoyed a new story so much for a good while, and I was cackling to myself particularly loudly a lot of the time.
This is genuinely wonderful writing, and far better than many books you may find on mainstream bookshop shelves - utterly recommended.
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