(Cover picture courtesy of Atom Books.)

My name is Chloe Saunders.  I’m fifteen, and I would love to be normal.

But normal is one thing I’m not.

To start with, I’m having these feelings for a certain antisocial werewolf and his sweet-tempered brother—who just happens to be a sorcerer—but, between you and me, I’m leaning toward the werewolf.

Not normal.

My friends and I are also on the run from an evil corporation that wants to get rid of us—permanently.

Definitely not normal.

And finally, I’m a genetically altered necromancer who can raise the dead, rotting corpses and all, without even trying.

As far away from normal as it gets.

Just like The Hunger Games, I wish The Summoning had been a stand-alone novel.  It wasn’t, so I was stuck reading The Reckoning, a terrible end to what had potential to be an amazing series.  Alas, Kelley Armstrong did not take the series to the next level.

My main problem is the cliché factor.  Necromancers are definitely new in the YA scene as they don’t have that vampire appeal, but that’s not what I have a problem with.  But the rest of the book?  Well, it’s pretty cliché.  Like a lot of YA books, it involves a huge love triangle, but for whatever reason it just doesn’t work.  Some books can pull off love triangles very well, but this is not one of those books.  It really ends up making Chloe into a Mary Sue, which is kind of is anyway, even without the love triangle.  Not only are the character clichéd, but the whole evil-corporation-genetically-engineers-people-then-wants-to-kill-them premise is old and utterly predictable.

The plot of The Reckoning just drags on and on, as if Kelley Armstrong suddenly had the urge to describe all of the corpses Chloe raises in mind-numbing detail.  I have a pretty strong stomach when it comes to gore (or else I would never, ever look up things like this for fun), but I did notice my appetite disappeared after reading this book.  This is a YA book, but it is not for the sensitive.

I give this book 2/5 stars.

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