Book Review- Nightshade

I just finished reading Nightshade by Andrea Cremer for an Around the World Tour.

From Goodreads:

While other teenage girls daydream about boys, Calla Tor imagines ripping out her enemies’ throats. And she wouldn’t have it any other way. Calla was born a warrior and on her eighteenth-birthday she’ll become the alpha female of the next generation of Guardian wolves. But Calla’s predestined path veers off course the moment she saves the life of a wayward hiker, a boy her own age. This human boy’s secret will turn the young pack's world upside down and forever alter the outcome of the centuries-old Witches' War that surrounds them all.

Okay, so after reading everyone's reviews, I think I am definitely the exception.  Everyone seems to rave about this book, but it was only okay for me.  I found the beginning completely confusing.  Who was who, what group was what, and the history was just not explained well until the middle.  And that turned me off of the book.  Now, this is an ARC, so maybe, and hopefully, it will be changed and things will be better explained.

If I take away the confusing part of the story, then the plot was actually okay.  I found it very action driven, and not too much character development.  There was a nice character love triangle, and while once again most reviewers were torn between the two boys, I definitely liked Shay better.  I didn't like Ren until towards the end when he became more of a sympathetic character and stopped seeming like such a player.  Calla was a nice, strong alpha werewolf, a nice difference from the typical male-only scenario.

The ending was just okay for me too (although I seem to actually not be an exception here).  I predicted the surprise of the union, but I think it should have stopped there instead of going on.  What came next just left me confused as to what's going on.  If they had stopped at the union, I think it would have been a bigger cliffhanger and I would have been eager to find out more.  As it is, I will read the next book, but it's not like I'm dying too.  And once again, its an ARC, so maybe the ending will change.

I gave the book a rating of 3/5.

Nightshade will be released on October 19, 2010.

This book fulfills items in the following challenges:
2010 100+ Reading Challenge: 82
2010 Young Adult Reading Challenge: 61
2010 Debut Author Challenge: 23
ARC Reading Challenge 2010: 60

*FTC Disclosure: I was given this book for free for an honest review as part of the Around the World Tours.