Review: If I Die (Soul Screamers Book 5) by Rachel Vincent

4 of 5 Stars

Publisher: Harlequin

Goodreads Synopsis:

The entire school's talking about the gorgeous new math teacher, Mr. Beck. Everyone except Kaylee Cavanaugh. After all, Kaylee's no ordinary high-school junior. She's a banshee—she screams when someone dies.

But the next scream might be for Kaylee.

Yeah—it's a shock to her, too. So to distract herself, Kaylee's going to save every girl in school. Because that hot new teacher is really an incubus who feeds on the desire of unsuspecting students. The only girls immune to his lure are Kaylee and Sabine, her boyfriend's needy ex-girlfriend. Now the unlikely allies have to get rid of Mr. Beck…before he discovers they aren't quite human, either.

But Kaylee's borrowed lifeline is nearing its end. And those who care about her will do anything to save her life. 

Anything.

Review:

[Contains some spoilers]

I've read all the other books in this series and loved them. They just keep getting better. I was expecting some things from this book because of what Vincent has said on her blog, and so I wasn't surprised by what happened in the book. As I read farther on, I could kind of tell that certain things were going to happen, and I was kind of glad when they did.

In this book, there's a new teacher at their school who is something not human, and they have to deal with that. Oh, and Kaylee's name is on the reaper list so her time is almost up. I wasn't particularly bothered with the teacher throughout most of the book, probably because I didn't think much of it. It's obvious, now, what part in the book he had, besides just an evil presence, and to take Kaylee's mind from her impending death. And I wondered throughout most of it how they were going to solve that problem. I'd guessed the solution at one point, but didn't fully consider it until later on in the book. Although I was a little off, I got the over all solution correct. Kaylee's coming demise did take up most of the book, which is understandable, and I liked, no matter how sad it was, how everyone dealt with it and reacted.

What happened with Kaylee and Tod, I was very much expecting. Mostly because of the hints that Vincent gave, and I was excited for this. I like Tod, probably more than Nash, but I was unsure how I would feel about him and Kaylee together. I'm still a little unsure. I think I didn't believe their connection or something, even though there is full reason to. It made sense for it to happen, and everything about how it happened and everything after made sense, but it just felt a little flat or something. Part of it is probably also that I'm unsure how I feel about Nash, and so I'm unsure how I feel about Kaylee moving on from him, although I'm warming to the idea that they shouldn't be together. I'm hoping that in the next book it feels better to me, because I really want to like Kaylee and Tod together.

As I said, I'm having mixed feeling about Nash. Because I want to like him and I liked him when he was with Kaylee in the earlier books, but then (SPOILER!) he started using frost, and then did it again in this book, and I do not like that. But I am warming to the idea of Nash and Sabine being together. They'll probably be good together. Now I just need to warm more to the idea of Tod and Kaylee, and I really hope that I feel better about them later. Because I like them so much separately, together they should be fantastic.

I do like Kaylee. She might not always make the best decisions, (not to say that she makes bad one,) but she's usually pretty smart with what she's doing, and she can think on her feet. In this book, she had to deal a little bit with the mental hospital she's stayed at for a little bit, and that was interesting. Mental hospitals are just interesting, though, in my opinion.

Now, the ending. The scene with the teacher was bad (in an intense, thrilling way), probably as bad as it was supposed to be, but I feel that the last bit, (SPOILER!) where she stabs him, could have been done better. It just seemed sudden and felt a little flat to me. The rest of the book, though, was pretty amazing. I was kind of hoping through most of the book that something like this would happen, so I'm glad that it did. I'm looking forward to seeing her in the next book in the new position she's in, as well as seeing more of her and Tod.