Stained - Ella James

This review is in English, because... well, because it's my party. And because I read it in London. Eheh. 

 

I think I got this ebook for free from amazon kindle store. I'm not sure ir was free, because it's been quite a while since I acquired it, but it wasn't expensive for sure. I mustn't have been paying a lot of attention because I didn't realise 1) it was YA 2) it was a series. I should have suspected as much, though, since many of the free kindle books are the first in a series, a rather smart and self-confident move by authors to hook  readers. I used to love series, but I've somehow lost the patience required to wait for the next installement to know what happens to characters and the plot. Lately, I've been running as fast as I can from series in which the book ends in a cliff-hanger (I'm reading The Lunar Chronicles and that's it!).

 

This is one of those books which starts badly for the main character, she runs all the time from and towards... people, lets call them that, and ends even worse. I'd actually like to know what happens to the poor girl, but not enough to read through four more books. One more would be fine, I'd even pay for it, but four? No, thanks.

 

The base story is not new, but the author does a good job with it. Orphan 17 year old girl (who thinks she's not so special, but has  misterious abilities that she keeps secret) looses much loved foster parents at the hands of a scary winged creature, runs away to avoid being sent back to the state, meets misterious and beautiful washboard abs boy with powers of his own. He clearly is not just a boy, but has no memory of what exactly happened to him. He has a bit of amnesia. She saves him from the creature, he saves her, and they agree to help one another kill the creature. Of course you know from the beginning 1) they'll fall for each other but, because this is YA, there'll probably be a lot of smooching but no sex. 2) there's more to each of them than meets the eye, and they probably should be enemies 3) they'll face hardship and death and stuff and be separated at some point  4) all will be well in the end (of book four or five or as many as the author manages to squeeze out of her imagination). 

 

There are nephilim and a society called "the stained", hence the name of the book. These people have abilities and a special "stain" somewhere in their body, so does the main character and they are very eagerly looking for her. There's loads of dead "stained"  and misterious dreams and visions that I didn't fully understand, which include them and the bad, bad nephilim. Bad nephilim.

 

It is not poorly written at all (except for the fact that I don't like to be told each two paragraphs how good-looking the boy is), and has a nice pace, though sometimes the reasons why they have to travel back and forth across the USA eluded me. It lacks some info and explanation of stuff, but they'll probably come in the next books. The main characters are believable, you actually want the poor girl and her neph... oops, her hero to survive and be together, since they seem to be hunted by everyone and in permanent danger. It's a nice book that I'm sure will please it's age group. 

 

Trata-se de um livro YA simpático, com algum mistério  em torno de nephilins e de uma sociedade de gente com capacidades e uma marca físcia, uma espécie de sinal (the stained) e personagens que até me fizeram torcer por elas, mas que me obrigaria a ler quatro ou cinco volumes, que eu não quero adquirir (acho que este foi gratuíto, o 'anzol' que vai decerto resultar com muita gente, porque o livro não é de todo mau).