Book Review: Low Red Moon, by Ivy Devlin

Book Review: Low Red Moon, by Ivy Devlin

Book Description from amazon.com:Avery witnessed her parents' death-but as much as she wants to remember who killed them, her mind is a blank. Then Avery meets Ben, mysterious and beautiful, with whom she feels an intense connection. When Ben reveals he's a werewolf, Avery still trusts him-until she learns that he, too, can't remember the night her parents died.

My thoughts:

There're only a few things I like about Low Red Moon by Ivy Devlin--aka Elizabeth Scott, according to the information I found on amazon.com, first the pretty book cover and the fine book design. That's it.

I picked up the book mostly because I found the recommendation from Melissa de la Cruz, author of the Blue Bloods series, but how I regret reading this book now! Dear Miss de la Cruz, you fail me big time! *sighs*

Okay, instead of vampires, Low Red Moon offers us werewolves. We get a 'forbidden' romance. We get an orphaned girl and her estranged grandmother trying to rebuild their relationship, we also get the tragedy of Avery witnessing the gruesome murder of her parents but she lost the memory due to the shock, making it impossible for her to identify the killer. So who is the evil murderer? The mysterious werewolf; Ben: the new boy in town and Avery's love interest; or one of the townies who wants to take Avery's parents' land and thinks said parents were in the way?

The setting above seems promising enough, but like so many other half-ass paranormal young adult novels, the author, Miss Devlin focused too much on the romance between her male and female leads, spending too much time on the sexual tension, on her female lead daydreaming about her pretty boy. Too little time and space were left for the family relation, the myth about werewolves, the mysterious connection the main girl supposed to have with the forest and murder mystery to develop. I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised to find the story leaves much to be desired.

Back then I once called Fallen by Lauren Kate and Evermore by Alyson Noel 'Twilight riff-offs', but Miss Kate and Miss Noel are more or less their own women when it comes to writing despite how similar the relationships between their main couples are with Bella Swan and Edward Cullen's, but it isn't the same with Miss Devlin. Frankly, I had never read a book which is so underdeveloped, so reeks of Twilight before. Whenever a 'romantic' scene comes up, I'd roll my eyes and think: "Oh, did Miss Devlin copy Stephenie Meyer's writing and put it in her own book or something?"

You might be puzzled by why I'd say such harsh thing, but I bet after you finish reading Low Red Moon, you would know what I mean.

And the story also shows plenty of Twilight Symptoms:

(a) The main couple always hang out in the forest, for no good reason.
(b) The male lead takes off his shirt in the forest for no good reason.
(c) The male lead has to be beautiful boy. Yes, the 'beautiful' part is especially highlighted for many times. Okay, now we know romance between ordinary boy and ordinary girl has no market in the YA genre.
(d) The female lead is beautiful, but doesn't know it.
(e) In a handful of situations, the female lead should be afraid of the male lead, but she isn't afraid.
(f) The male lead wants to stay away from the main girl, for unknown reason.
(g) The main couple falls in love, for no good reason.
(h) The male lead tries to stay away from the main girl with some "NO I'LL HURT YOU! I'M DANGEROUS!" excuses, but of course he can't keep himself away.

A story about a werewolf boy and a human girl can be beautifully, meaningfully and romantically written, but sadly Low Red Moon isn't one of those books. Many different issues were brought up by the author but they were merely being touched upon very briefly and lightly, giving you no satisfaction and insight. The setting is lame, the tone and the writing style is nothing special, the murder mystery is half-ass at best, the so called 'romance' is a lot 'OH HE'S SO BEAUTIFUL I LOVE HIM!!!' teenage soap opera. I saw no solid foundation for the 'love' between these two, other than sexual attraction and the halfhearted explanation of the mysterious 'bond' between them.

The lack of depth and development in ALL of the characters is one of the major reasons why Low Red Moon turns out to be such a letdown. None of character is likable, none of them manages to keep me interested. Ben and his grandfather are too thinly written that it is difficult to identify with them. We are supposed to sympathize with Avery's grandmother but I found her to be highly unlikable when she kept bossing Avery around and withholding information from her.

Although the book is narrated by the main character Avery, but I don't find her to be believable for half of the time. The only part about her that hints at her strength and maturity is the part she went to school after her parents' funeral and withstood the gossips and cold-shouldering of her schoolmates. Then there's nothing else. For starters, I don't think Avery acts like a traumatized girl who had witnessed the murder of her parents at all. For a girl who had survived an attack of a cold-blooded killer, she shows too little fear and concern for her own safety, she seems to be a little too bold even when she was alone in a dark forest, knowing fully well her parents' murderer is still at large and may strike again.

Plus, Avery's mysterious connection with the forest and Ben is NEVER explained, that's really awful when the heroine's supernatural ability comes out of nowhere!

As it turns out, the murderer is...Okay, who cares about who the murderer really is anyway? Even to the end of the book I still can't understand why on earth would he kill Avery's parents and the other townies! He seems to kill those people for no good reason! And said murderer also tries to kill Avery by...damaging a tree so it would fall down when Avery walks pass it? Does it mean Avery weight as much as an elephant so when she walks in the forest, trees would fall down due to the vibration of her heavy steps!? What a silly murder attempt! Why don't he just shoot her or run a car over her or something?

The Final Words:

Low Red Moon is a very short, very dull and very undeveloped book, to a point that I wonder why would I spend so much time writing such a long review rant for it.