Review: Become by Ali Cross

Title: Become
Author: Ali Cross
Format: Ebook
Publisher: Self-published
Publish Date: November 11, 2011
Source: I received a copy from the author; however, this did not affect my review.

Why You're Reading This Book:

• You're a paranormal fan.
• You're a young adult fiction fan.

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Sixteen-year old Desolation Black wants nothing more than to stay in Hell where it’s cold and lonely and totally predictable. Instead, she’s sent back to Earth where she must face the evil she despises and the good she always feared.

When Desi is forced to embrace her inner demon, she assumes her choice has been made—that she has no hope of being anything other than what her father, Lucifer, has created her to be. What she doesn’t count on, is finding a reason to change—something she’s never had before—a friend."

My Two Cents: 

Desi is a teenager trying to deal with all of the normal teenage trials and tribulations. She's trying to fit in. She's trying to find her place in the world. She's trying to find a couple friends to be on her side. To make matters a little different, she's the daughter of the devil. Desi's story definitely pulled me in! And I loved the fact that the story is loosely based in some of the stories of Norse mythology. Totally cool!

Some of you may realize paranormal is a genre that is a little out of the box for me. I found this book to be a good stepping stone for me. Cross' writing pulls you in and really invests you in the story. Cross also does a great job of sort of "normalizing" the world in which Desi lives in. What I mean by that is that even though there is obviously a strong element of paranormal present in the book, Cross makes it seem completely plausible, which eased the path for me, someone who doesn't normally read a lot of paranormal, to feel like this is a world that I could know.

Now, this book is the first in a planned series so some of this could be explained in the next couple books. First, I wished that the involvement of the Catholic church was explained a little more. Are they good or bad? They seem sort of in the middle in a lot of parts. I had a bit of confusion on that. Much of the book takes place at a Catholic school, which was very interesting to me.

I would definitely like to see what happens in the next book. There is not really a huge cliffhanger so conceivably, you could read this book as a standalone book. I really would love to see what happens to some of the characters.

Bottom line: This is a good stepping stone into the world of the paranormal genre.