Book Review: Haven by Kristi Cook

Image (c) Simon Pulse

Haven (Winterhaven #1) by Kristi Cook
Release Date: February 22nd, 2011
Book Format: Library Book
Rating: Two Stars

Violet McKenna thought she was crazy when she had a vivid vision of her dad’s murder—but when her premonition came true, her life fell apart. Then she found a new school: Winterhaven. There, Violet fits right in. All the students have special “gifts” like her own, and she quickly finds a close group of friends. But Violet’s attraction to an alluring boy becomes problematic when intense visions of his death start to haunt her. In her premonitions, the secret he is unwilling to share begins to reveal itself—and the unbelievable becomes reality. To Violet’s horror, she learns that their destinies are intertwined in a crictical—and deadly—way.

I had high hopes for this book. I was really hoping this book would turn out to be really good, despite the typical 'girl falls in love with a guy' sort of deal. But I ended up being highly disappointed, for many reasons that'll be explained in this review.

The premises of the book is about this girl named Violet (which, I had to admit, I kept forgetting a lot while I read it) who now only has her stepmom and her Gran in her life as both of her parents passed away with her mother gone when she was young and her father's death was more recent. When she finds an opportunity to move away, with her step-mom getting a new job in another state, she decided to go to Winterhaven because it just seemed right. There, she meets her roommate- 'Cece'- and within the first day she meets a boy named Aidan whom seemed to have gathered a quick interest in her despite not really giving any interest in many females on campus. But, once Violet sees visions about Aidan even though she doesn't know him all that well (and she only sees visions about people she cares about?), that's when the story starts to unfold.

I did fall in love with the scenery, the building, and the fact that there's a school built for mostly psychic-gifted students. Well, actually, that's what I loved about this book the most- the fact that everyone on campus is gifted with some sort of psychic power (well, at the very least it certainly hinted at that). I mean, that was what pulled me into the book in the first place! That's, sadly, where most of its uniqueness ends for me since the rest of it wasn't very unique at all.

I did not like Violet. The lack of even remembering her name should be evident enough. She's incredibly self-centered and very careless of her own well being considering that she had almost allowed Aidan to have very many close calls with her... and no fucks were ever given. And the funny part is, even though Aidan says he's not as mature, he's still more mature than Violet (although I felt like being told that he'd never mature cause he turned when he was seventeen is a bit out there and I find it hard to believe...).

The story premises has some interesting turns (including somewhere close to the end), but overall it was just simply too obvious and nothing was surprising to me at all. It could've been something incredibly special and it just... wasn't.

Ultimately, though, it was just a really horrible book in my opinion. It ended up feeling like it was a combination of Twilight and The Vampire Diaries, which is probably why it ended up being received so well because of the fact that it's a mesh of two popular series. But I am not a big fan of one of them and I have yet to read the Vampire Diaries series. I doubt I'll read the second book anytime to this series.

If you happen to be a fan of either Twilight or The Vampire Diaries, this is the book for you.

Originally posted and shared on November 27th, 2013