Lailah by Nikki Kelly is a fresh take on paranormal romance with a dark, intriguing twist. It follows Lailah, a girl torn between vampires and angels while grappling with mysterious memories of past lives. With suspense, forbidden romance, and a love triangle that keeps you guessing, it’s engaging and emotional. Fans of supernatural love stories will enjoy the blend of mystery and danger in this fast-paced read, though some romance elements feel familiar. A captivating start for fans of YA fantasy and romance!

i want to thank NetGalley and Feiwel and Friends for providing me with an egalley of this book to read and give my honest review. All opinions expressed here are my own.
I love me a good vampire story (though we get more than just vampires here: angels, demons). There is just something that draws me to them, as deadly as they can be. This book gave me an almost Supernatural show feel to it (one of my favorites) so of course I enjoyed the ride.
Let's start with the cover because even though we should not judge a book by this, let's face it, we all do. I loved it. It gave me a creepy vibe, which is a good draw. But also made me want to find out if there was any significance to it. that is a mark of a good cover!
The characters are great. They are well fleshed out and relatable. Especially Lailah, who has these visions but of course cannot figure out why. And then there is the love triangle: are you team Jonah and team Gabriel? Vampire or angel? Sometimes it's just so hard to choose! Honestly not a fan of insta-love, but it seemed to work here, even if it was a bit creepy. And I do like a story that pits one guy against the other pulling the girl in both directions. Who will win in the end.
The pacing was good. I wasn't quickly pulled through the story but it gave me just enough push to keep wanting to turn the pages.
The plot, well, the hook took me a bit to get to. I wasn't sure if I would get there, actually, but once I did, it was hard to put it down since I really wanted to know what was going to happen.
The plot was similar to many in YA I've read, but the take on vampires was a bit more unique.
I'm glad I dove into this one and hope to get to the next one soon because GABRIEL!

I know this book was really popular when it was on Wattpad, but.... I just couldn't get into it. The plot was weirdly both slow and and threw you into the action at the same time. There's some really interesting stuff buried in the book, with a different take on angels that I wish had lived up to its potential. While I know that this is the start to a series and there was some substantial world-building to be done, it was just too much and bogged down the story. This one just wasn't for me.

WHY DID I LISTEN TO LAILAH BY NIKKI KELLY?
Originally, I started reading Lailah by Nikki Kelly on the plane to Cabo. However, I just could not get into it at the time. As it was vacation, I decided to go with my whims and set the book aside for a later time because it could just be a matter of mood. Two years passed, I moved, got married, had a baby. Here we are today with Lailah still on my TBR. So, being the biggest fan of my local library and Hoopla, I decided NOW IS THE TIME. After all, in my life it is so much easier to get through books that I am ambivalent about via audio than to try and force myself to physically read them.

WHAT’S THE STORY HERE?
Okay so the book starts out with a girl who doesn’t know her name. Those of us in the audience of this book, readers, we already know her name because it is the title of Nikki Kelly’s book, Lailah. So, Lailah is this girl who gets herself caught up in a war between vampires and angels. But there’s also these really powerful vampires called sires. Anyways, there’s also a love triangle involving Lailah, a vampire named Jonah, and an angel named Gabriel. It’s just sort of okay. OH and there’s examinations of good and evil and all that. I mostly sort of tuned out though.

HOW DID I LIKE LAILAH?
Okay, so I have to confess. I am not going to be continuing the Styclar Saga. I know that it works for so many other people. However, this is just not the book series for me. I tried twice to get into this book – first via print and second via audio. Honestly,I was just really bored. I finished the audiobook of Lailah five days ago but I definitely could not recount the plot on an incredibly detailed level. It is just forgettable to me. However, I have seen people really get into and be big fans of this book. More power to them, it is just not for me though.

HOW’S THE NARRATION?
The audiobook is narrated by Sophie Ward. She has this British accent which works out well for the audiobook. Her voice isn’t unpleasant or annoying by any means. I just could not keep my attention on this book. It really failed to engage me. Perhaps if it was a narrator I was more familiar with? Still, this just was not the book or the audiobook for me, but there is definitely a loyal following and so, I would say give this one a chance.