Novel Review: Before I Wake (Soul Screamers, #6) by Rachel Vincent

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

Rating (Out of 5): ~4.5

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Spoilers?: Yes for previous books, vague for this one.

Goodreads Synopsis:

I died on a Thursday—killed by a monster intent on stealing my soul. The good news? He didn't get it.

The bad news? Turns out not even death will get you out of high school…

Covering up her own murder was one thing, but faking life is much harder than Kaylee Cavanaugh expected. After weeks spent "recovering," she's back in school, fighting to stay visible to the human world, struggling to fit in with her friends and planning time alone with her new reaper boyfriend.

But to earn her keep in the human world, Kaylee must reclaim stolen souls, and when her first assignment brings her face-to-face with an old foe, she knows the game has changed. Her immortal status won't keep her safe. And this time Kaylee isn't just gambling with her own life….

Something Specific:

• This book made me cry.

Review:

This was, by far, my favorite of the Soul Screamers books in a long while. The last few I read were, while very good in content, a little hard to get through. There were just a lot of slow spots that you had to read before getting to the exciting parts. This one, though, seemed to go by much faster, and I had no trouble getting through it. I even ended up reading it faster than I had planned.

And I was not prepared for the emotional trip that this book took me on. Not prepared at all.

In this book, Kaylee is dealing with the fact that she’s dead and has decided to continue going to school and why any of that matters when she sometimes forgets to breathe. She’s dealing with something that I hadn’t really thought about before, but makes total sense with the fact that she’s dead. And it’s very nice that she has Tod during all of this, since he’s gone through all of it before.

I love Kaylee and Tod together. Tod is so sweet to and good for her, and they need each other. I loved all of their little moments together, and the step they’ve taken. I don't think I was fully sold on them before, but I definitely am now. Plus Kaylee’s dad (who is a fantastic dad) has to deal with them being a couple, as well as Nash.

Nash is just a problem all his own, and I’m having a hard time with him. Because, first of all, yea, maybe she should have been there for him more when he was going through his addiction, but what he did to her is unforgivable. And then I understand why he’s mad about being framed, but Kaylee had her reasons, and she did all she could to get him off the hook. I want to feel more bad for him than I do, but he just needs to move on with his life. He’s stuck in a depressed, self-centered state of mind, and he just needs to get over it already. And he needs to wake up to the fact that he has Sabine.

I don’t mind Sabine so much anymore; although I didn’t much from the beginning, either. She’s very straightforward, which I like. And maybe she doesn’t always do the best things, but she has her reasons for them, and she’s very open about those reasons.

Sophie, Kaylee’s cousin: I’m not a big fan of her, for obvious reasons. But she kind of interested me in this book. Mainly because of Luca, a new character we met in this book. And the fact that she met him in the Netherworld in an e-book that I have not read but want to. This book especially made me want to know how, seeing as I want to know more about their relationship and how they met.

Quite a bit happened in this book, and it made it very obvious that something big with Avari, the demon they’ve been slowly fighting for a while now, is going to happen. I think it has taken way too long for Kaylee to get actually mad at him, but it has finally happened, and I am excited to see what goes down in the next, and final, book. Something big near the end of this book happened with Emma, and I’m intrigued to see what comes of that in the next book. And something happened with one of the characters that made me cry a little; a character that I liked but didn’t think I had such big feelings for. I’m not going to ruin it, but I wasn’t expecting it until it happened, and something seemed off, and then I was right and I really didn’t want to be.

I’m just looking forward to the last book, but definitely not the wait for it.