I'll round up to 4 stars. I gave the prequel a 3 because it was well written and interesting, but almost nothing on it's own. I gave the first book a 4. I enjoyed it. But dropped a star form book 2 because there was so much recap and info-dumping. It's probably easiest to just post the three reviews.

My Soul to Lose
An interesting start to the series. My interest is piqued and I'm curious to see how it progresses, but on it's own it feels incomplete. Nothing is resolved. More questions are presented than answers provided. In fact almost nothing is concluded. I'd call it a prologue to something else, as opposed to a book (or even a story) on it's own. [Plus, having finished books one and two now I can officially say that nothing in it is touched on again. The girl who helps Kaylee never shows up again. That feels like a missed opportunity right there.]

My Soul to Take
I liked it alright. Kaylee was a good, strong heroine. Nash was wonderfully supportive. There were a few good twists. I generally liked most of the characters and it was well written.

The book did have a few irritants though. For one Kaylee was no where near angry enough with her family for lying to her her whole life. No where near angry enough! I felt cheated by her lack of venom. Plus, I still don't understand why they did it. I understand why her father sent her to live with his brother, but why wasn't she told about her heritage? That was never addressed. For another, Nash seemed to have fallen instantly in love with Kaylee. I generally hate insta-love, but that wasn't what this felt like. I don't want to give any spoilers, so I'll be vague. But, other than their parents, they were the only two of what they were and it felt very much like this was the basis of his infatuation.

Yet another irritant was the fact that even amidst all the new, mind boggling information Kaylee was assimilating we are somehow supposed to believe that she alone noticed the mystery in need of solving. Then, despite the fact that her theory was practically based on fairy dust (i.e., nothing substantial) she was right. I thought the very fact that she knew something was wrong felt almost miraculous.

Lastly, there seemed to be a little bit of a plot hole between the fact that those who claimed the souls of the departed were doing a job they were recruited for, while Kaylee and Nash had a natural-born skill. These two tasks seem to be connected, flip sides of a coin almost. So how is one something you are born to do and the next something you are essentially hired to do? It seems to me that both would either have be natural or not, but how can they be so closely related if they haven't evolved together?

All-in-all I enjoyed the read. I have the next in the series, My Soul to Save, and I'll be reading it next.

My Soul to Save
I'm still enjoying this series. Kaylee is still a wonderfully strong heroine, who depends on her boyfriend a lot, but isn't dependent on him. (If that makes any sense.) I like that. I also really like Tod. He's an interesting character who often brings about thought provoking moral quandaries. I like that too, and the fact that Kaylee (who is usually the decision-maker) doesn't alway do the 'right' thing. It makes for an interesting read. I also just plain like the narrative style. Plus, the unmistakeable similarities between the evil empire (Dekker Inc) and Disney was golden. Golden I say!

Like the first book, however, there are a few aspects of the story that leave me scratching my head. Again Kaylee managed to take some small snippet of information, almost nothing really, and weave a theory around it. Then miraculously succeed with it. This time, based on one overheard sentence, she needed to find one demon of a specific sort, of which there could be many. The first 'person' she asks is able to tell her where he is; he's the right one; they find him immediately and are able to just walk right in and see him. Not to suggest that there were no difficulties, but it all seemed to go a little too easily.

Then there is the basic question of why exactly Kaylee feels like she and she alone has to save everyone? It never seems to occur to her to ask for help. I also had a little trouble grasping the whole drama around being grounded. I probably would have been able to relate to this if I was younger; I admit. But it seemed to me (and Tod apparently) that normal teen drama issues would just get blown off in the face of saving souls and all. On a similar note she seems to accept her father's reappearance and over zealous parenting with ease. Her internal thoughts were often appropriately acerbic, but she never vocalised it. Maybe I'm just mean, but I think after 13 years he deserved a little guilt. I kept waiting for her to finally lay into him and she had plenty of opportunity. But she never did.

My main complaint about this particular book, however, was that the first half was really cluttered with info-dumps and recaps of book one. For a little while it felt like every paragraph had some sort of catch-up clause in it and it really broke up the narrative. I got pretty frustrated with it after a while.

The bottom line, though, is that I basically enjoyed it. If I come across book three at some point I'd be more than happy to give it a read. ( )

For more reviews, Cover Snark and more, visit A Reader of Fictions.

Thanks to BEA 2012, I’ve had a pretty copy of this omnibus sitting on my shelves for a year and a half. While, ideally, I’d already have read everything I had from all the conferences I’ve attended, practically that just doesn’t happen, even though I try. Eventually, though, the time comes, and the time has come for me to binge read this series. I went into Soul Screamers with very low expectations, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the quality of these opening books, which came out in the wave of paranormal. I’ll be reviewing the omnibus as a whole, covering the novella and both books, rather than doing separate reviews, but they’re shouldn’t be any spoilers for either book.

By far the best part of the Soul Screamers series in the first two books is the mythology. Rachel Vincent makes use of Celtic and other mythologies to devise a paranormal landscape not quite like any I’ve ever read about. There’s a depth and cleverness here I generally don’t find in paranormal titles. The heroine learns that she’s a bean sidhe, more commonly known as a banshee. You know, those women who shriek? Flattering, amirite?

There’s more to the world then that, though. So far, Vincent’s also introduced reapers (as in grim), demons, and fiends. In addition, there’s the human world and the Netherworld, a sort of parallel to the world we knew, full of dark, paranormal creatures. The Netherworld is also full of carnivorous, poisonous plants. Also, I have to say that I love this book for including a Little Shop of Horrors reference. Thus far, the series has been pretty light, but the world building is good and leaves room for some really intense, heartbreaking stories.

Speaking of heartbreaking, I’d really love for the series to head in the direction of that initial short story in tone. In My Soul to Lose, the reader gets to see Kaylee’s time in a mental institution after she started screaming and wouldn’t stop. She has no idea why that happened until a year later in the events of My Soul to Take. It’s dark and creepy and awesome. Plus, this mental hospital had rules and didn’t leave the doors open for the patients to wander around like every other one I’ve read about in YA. So yay for door locks!

The cast has yet to make me fall in love, but they’re interesting. Kaylee’s a nice girl. She may actually be rather average looking, though I would guess a bit better than average, but she doesn’t have every guy ever falling in love with her. Plus, she and Emma, her best friend, actually seem to like each other. Best of all, even though Emma’s more popular, prettier and does well with guys, Kaylee doesn’t resent her in the slightest. The romance hasn’t made me swoon, but it’s nice that what I thought might be a love triangle with Nash and Tod so far isn’t. In the first two books, it’s just Nash and Kaylee building a fairly normal teenage relationship and dealing with ordinary relationship problems, while also having all that paranormal stuff.

At this point, I have only two concerns, one of which is more objective and one more subjective. In My Soul to Take and My Soul to Save, Kaylee’s relationship with her cousin isn’t great. In fact, her cousin comes off as the standard bitchy mean girl. I want to see this develop as the series goes along. I’m assuming it will, but I’ll be annoyed if that doesn’t happen. The other worry I have about my relationship with Soul Screamers is that it seems like this might get pretty episodic, more like Dead Like Me than Croak. I prefer my fiction to have a larger narrative driving the story forward, but My Soul to Save was basically another little paranormal mystery. While I will probably like all the episodes, just as I did with Dead Like Me, I might not like any of it as much as the beginning.

That said, reviews seem to indicate that this series only improves, and quite a bit from here. Thus, I sort of expect I’ll come back, look at this review, and laugh at my concerns. That’s part of the fun, though, right? Anyway, that’s how I feel right at this moment. ( )