Review: Claire de Lune by Christine Johnson

Torn between two destinies.

Claire is having the perfect sixteenth birthday. Her pool party is a big success, and gorgeous Matthew keeps chatting and flirting with her as if she’s the only girl there. But that night, she discovers something that takes away all sense of normalcy: she’s a werewolf.

As Claire is initiated into the pack of female werewolves, she must deal not only with her changing identity, but also with a rogue werewolf who is putting everyone she knows in danger. Claire’s new life threatens her blossoming romance with Matthew, whose father is leading the werewolf hunt. Now burdened with a dark secret and pushing the boundaries of forbidden love, Claire is struggling to feel comfortable in either skin. With her lupine loyalty at odds with her human heart, she will make a choice that will change her forever.

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This will definitely be a positive review which is always a plus. I have a few negative ones I plan on posting and these ones always feel a lot better. Although the rant about a bad book isn’t awful, ranting about a great one is much better.

Once again, this series is a young adult novel centered around the supernatural theme I’ve always been so drawn to. More specifically werewolves. Except, the concept and aspects of the werewolves have changed. One in which the females are the only ones born to be loup-garou. The traditions of it though, leaves our heroine, Claire at odds with herself when she is brought into the werewolf world her mother kept her from. Not to mention, in this story, werewolves aren’t a secret. Their existence is widely known across the world and as expected they’re generally a hated and ostracized species. The fact that werewolf killings are going on around town definitely adds to Claire’s growing list of things to stress about.

I’ll start on her character because let’s face it, the main character truly can and will make or break a story. Claire definitely makes it quite nicely. She’s been a typical teenager for the first sixteen years of her life until it’s turned upside down by her mother of all people. Then she suddenly has no choice, but to cope and suddenly face a new life she can’t choose. Throughout the book, she is dealing with this in various ways, all of which were extremely relatable for me. I found myself stepping right into her shoes and as always, loved it. Claire’s thoughts and worries always make so much sense. But the way she deals with them make me love her. She moves as she feels she needs to be and doesn’t let herself be influenced too much. Her ideas are her own, even if sometimes she’s not quite sure to make out of it.

Then, there’s her love interest. He, is shown from the very beginning of this story as a pretty typical, hot, sporty and popular highschooler. Well, except that his dad is the scientist trying to find a ‘cure’ for werewolves. And, he happens to be extremely smart, always considerate of Claire and willing to put his life on the line for her. He cares about her and manages to be all the right things for her exactly when she needs it. During the story, he was an amazing outlet for Claire to deal with the stress that was put on her. Not to mention the way they connected with each other was something to love. A typical love in a not-so-typical way.

This romance also manages to fit in nicely with the plot. It grows alongside it and the two mingle perfectly together. Claire de Lunewas definitely a romance with the supernatural alongside it and the plot wound the two concepts together flawlessly. They didn’t move too fast and not to slow. A great pace with great hints given to the reader in a unique way that I really enjoyed, like slipping into the perspective of the killer itself. It was a wonderful thing because I’ve always loved getting a sneak peak into what the stories’ antagonist is thinking. The climax built, peaked and settled down nicely as well and left me with a nice comfortable ending with just enough open ends for the continuation of the series, Nocturne.

One thing I didn’t completely enjoy is that while Claire was relatable in many ways, she also was a typical teenager in many others, in ways I more or less didn’t enjoy as much. Her best friend was far too immature and at the beginning of the series, Claire was too. To me, her thoughts were shallow and not very much to think of, of course later on there is that development in maturity which is great. Although I did find she still had those pointless worries that I found were a waste of time. It didn’t help that the writing style was decent, but had room for improvement.

I would recommend this book to anybody looking for a romance and supernatural put together in a nice sweet way. Claire and her love interest really do suit each other nicely. The writing style isn’t overly complex, but is enjoyable.  Later on, I plan on reviewing the second book so watch out for that. Have fun reading.

Note: transferred from my previous group blog meers2review.

Until next time,

Shayla