Review: Lailah by Nikki Kelly

Series: The Styclar Saga #1

Publication: October 7th 2014 by Feiwel & Friends

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal

Rating:

The girl knows she’s different. She doesn’t age. She has no family. She has visions of a past life, but no clear clues as to what she is, or where she comes from. But there is a face in her dreams–a light that breaks through the darkness. She knows his name is Gabriel.

On her way home from work, the girl encounters an injured stranger whose name is Jonah. Soon, she will understand that Jonah belongs to a generation of Vampires that serve darker forces. Jonah and the few like him are fighting with help from an unlikely ally, a rogue Angel named Gabriel.

In the crossfire between good and evil, love and hate, and life and death, the girl learns her name: Lailah. But when the lines between black and white begin to blur, where in the spectrum will she find her place? And with whom?

Gabriel and Jonah both want to protect her. But Lailah will have to fight her own battle to find out who she truly is.

I am an unfortunate reader where I cannot read a recently released book. Reasons I've got are: school, school, school and money. I don't have much time to read and no time to write a review. I just rate it on Goodreads and there you go. That's a review to me. But it's useless if you just rate a book and don't share a review. Plus, money matters. My mother scolds me every time I buy a book, either new or bargain. I want to yell at her 'You don't know how it feels to have this book!!' but that's impossible.

Lailah is one of the books I have been waiting to see at our local bookstore's shelves but is not there until now. (Disappointed reader here. Also, I am not that eager to order online since I'll pay for the book, the shipping fee and the custom fee.) It has been a talk on Twitter for a month or so since its release. The people are like tweet shouting at me that it should be read right now and feel the feels they felt! Nikki is also an interactive author. I love authors who are so approachable to their readers and discuss stuffs about their books. I have read mixed views of Lailah on Twitter and mostly they are really getting my attention and my envy level is growing high. Even Carmel of Carmel and Kyla ordered it online after reading it in on her phone. I'm so lucky she let me borrow her copy. That filled my envy over a book.

Lailah is the first book in the series The Styclar Saga where Lailah is the heroine stuck in the middle of a war between knave vampires and their masters. It is a war for freedom of the second generation vampires and who are willing to change and remain their humanity in their hearts. An arch angel named Gabriel is set to be an ally of these regressive vampires. Somehow, Gabriel is the only face and name Lailah knows through her vision of her past life. While Jonah, a vampire she saved from death, adds questions about her existence.

Nikki Kelly wrote Lailah with immense purpose–for Lailah to know what she really is. There are not much twists and turns but is quite thorough. On knowing her being, she is associated with Gabriel and Jonah, both from different dimension. Kelly intend these two to be part of Lailah–Gabriel from her past willing not to push her memories and Jonah, mysteriously wonders what in the heck is Lailah truly. Thus, Nikki tried and successfully put these characters together.

As much as I love the book, most readers rate it poorly. Lailah is sadly compared to Twilight and The Vampire Academy series. This is the part I should have reminisce TVD since it is the only vampire series that I have read but that didn't occur to me. Maybe for others, Kelly's writing is not that effective, but it is to me. Lailah is a pleasantly entertaining read. I think readers should not overwhelm their selves of what they have already read to what they are reading. They are written by different authors. They have different perspectives. Unless they are honest enough to tell their readers they got their inspirations from those books.

Lailah is for readers who love busy fights between beings from different dimension–vampires and angels–cunning love triangles, and horrendous self-knowing.

Interested to read 'Lailah'?
Purchase it at: Book Depository, Amazon, B&N