Review: Banished by Kate Brian

Let me preface this by saying, I love Kate Brian. I've loved the Private Series since it first came out. I love her other books as well. She is without a doubt one of my favorite and most admired authors.

Which makes what I'm about to say even harder.

I did not love this book. *cringes* I didn't even like this book.

I'm not including any spoilers because I love Kate and still recommend her books, so I apologize for the vagueness.

I put off buying it for a little bit as things have been so busy and I knew I'd want to read it in one sitting. Normally I would've bought it the same day it came out. So when I finally sat down to read it yesterday, the anticipation had grown enormous.

As it started, I waited to be grabbed, to be sucked in so completely I literally couldn't put it down, as I had with every other book in the series. Ummm....no such luck. I wasn't grabbed, and I really just wanted to know how it was going to end, although I already had a sneaking suspicion. So I did something I have never done with this author before...I skimmed. The entire book. Until I got about ten pages before the end. And when I got to the end, I screamed and threw the book down. I threw a book.

Oh, the shame!

But I couldn't help it. Kate Brian has kept me on edge with killer cliffhangers and shocking revelations. And Vanished ended with one that made me not even want to read the next book. I've read 12 books in this series (12!) and now she completely changes everything I've ever thought this series was about in one line on the last page. And more than anything it felt like a cheap ploy to have a plot for the next book and jump on the YA paranormal fad-train.

NOTHING in the previous 11 books makes this end plausible or realistic. There has always been a certain amount of suspending reality to make this series work, and I never minded before. There could never be so much murder, so many lunatics, kidnappings, secret half-sisters, ridiculously hot guys, etc. in real life. But Vanished crossed the line into completely ridiculous.