Review: In the Arms of Stone Angels

Title: In the Arms of Stone Angels

Author: Jordan Dane

Date Published: 22 Mar. 2011

Publisher: Harlequin

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Brenna Nash has a secret, she can see dead people. She left Shawano, Oklahoma two year before when she found the boy, White Bird, who she was in love with, at a gruesome crime scene wielding the murder weapon. Now she is forced to return and finds that White Bird has been in a mental hospital trapped in his own head since she betrayed him to the authorities. Brenna is having problems with bullies and police officers now that she is back, and she also has doubts about White Bird being the murderer. Can she convince everyone that White Bird is innocent? And if she succeeds, can she bring him back after the trauma of that night two years ago?

Some of the events that happened and  pieces of information they attained during their attempt to help White Bird were far fetched. Sometimes that's not a bad thing, but the random details they noticed made it unrealistic. Not only was it unrealistic, but I could easily see how the ending would play out from in early point in the book. The ending was being set up from the beginning and I had hoped Jordan Dane was tricking me and that the obvious solution would not be flipped around somehow, but the story played out the way I imagined it would. It seemed as though the Jordan Dane was afraid the beginning and middle would not set up the ending well enough, so she then prepared for the climax too early in the book. I felt there should have been more of a build up at the end, the entire book felt like a build up and the climax felt no different from the rest of the book. There were horrible events and struggles, but it was predictable.

I did not feel as though I had a connection to the character, I didn't even particularly like them. Brenna was irritating and I did not fall in love with White Bird the way I usually love leading male characters. Even though the story provided background information on them I don't feel I know them very well after reading the entire book. Sometimes it's hard to explain why you don't like a character. The characters grew and changed into better people, they struggled and got through whatever was thrown at them, they even sounded realistic, but I still didn't like them.

I don't know much about native Americans, but it appeared as though Jordan Dane did a great job with her research. I'm very picky when it comes to dialogue. Some authors can't get the YA voice right. This story was on the verge of bad YA dialogue, but it was bearable to the point that I'm unable to point out specific problems I had with the dialogue. The book was written from several different views. It was mostly from Brenna, other teenagers and two police officers point of views. The story was created around that, but at first it annoyed me. The other teenagers were such angry people they felt one dimensional from it and the police officers left nothing to the imagination. If the reader was uncertain how the officers and other teenagers were feeling and thinking it might not have made such a predictable story.

I don't like giving bad reviews, but I didn't like this book!