Book Review #1: Mortal Danger

The book being reviewed is part of the Immortal Danger series by Ann Aguirre. It is book one of the series and is entitled Mortal Danger.

“In Ann Aguirre’s Mortal Danger, Edie Kramer has a score to settle with the beautiful people at Blackbriar Academy. Their cruelty drove her to the brink of despair, and four months ago, she couldn’t imagine being strong enough to face her senior year. But thanks to a Faustian compact with the enigmatic Kian, she has the power to make the bullies pay. She’s not supposed to think about Kian once the deal is done, but devastating pain burns behind his unearthly beauty, and he’s impossible to forget.

In one short summer, her entire life changes and she sweeps through Blackbriar, prepped to take the beautiful people down from the inside. A whisper here, a look there, and suddenly . . . bad things are happening. It’s a head rush, seeing her tormentors get what they deserve, but things that seem too good to be true usually are, and soon, the pranks and payback turns from delicious to deadly. Edie is alone in a world teeming with secrets and fiends lurking in the shadows. In this murky morass of devil’s bargains, she isn’t sure who—or what—she can trust. Not even her own mind.” (Provided by Google Books)

In my opinion, the book was an interesting read. I’ve put off reading this for a while because of school, choir and all the other crazy things that have been going on in my life, and because of how long my to-read list is. I also haven’t read that many books by Aguirre; however, I’ve started to reconsider after reading this.

One thing I liked was how much the cover jacket connected to the plot. It really made one of the small details a bigger part of the story. I wish Aguirre expanded a bit more on Kian’s employers who give Edie her power to make her bullies pay; however, that could be explained in the other books within this series. A major theme in this seems to be a change in character. Towards the beginning of the book, Edie is very quiet and self-conscious of herself. After getting a second chance thanks to Kian, she has grown as a person and gained confidence in herself.

Another reoccurring theme is death. After Edie gets her second chance, many of her loved ones are dying, whether it’s by murder or by an illness. When this happens, you can sense a shift in Edie’s character as she continues to grow throughout the story. The book at times appealed to me emotionally. I could relate to Edie because I was bullied a lot but I didn’t take the suicidal way out. I wish Edie didn’t decide to go that route and had the courage to tell her parents what was going on instead of them going on a scavenger hunt through her emotions.

This book was published by Square Fish in 2015. The common price for this is $7.99. The ISBN number is 9781250064370.