Nightstruck by Jenna Black

I can see why teens might like this: teen angst, paranormal, very creepy. For me personally, it wasn't very enjoyable. There's a lot more angst that I typically find in YA, and yes I know. I'm not the audience for this, and I understand that! The author didn't write this for me, but I can compare it to other books I've read like it. The violence and gore was a bit too much for my tastes, but I think teens at the library will be very interested.

Tis the season for SPOOKY. Nightstruck by Jenna Black certainly meets the mark for a spine chilling read. It is a young adult book featuring a Philadelphia that’s straight out of hell. And there’s no escape.

Nightstruck basically opens on a sinister note. Apparently a veil between the worlds has been breached and bait has been set. We then move to the first chapter where Becket is out walking her dog (Bob Barker – I love that dog name, may steal it someday) when she hears the cry of an abandoned infant on a church step. The night is cold and no one is there at the church, so she goes to help the baby.

Unfortunately, it isn’t really a baby. Becket unwittingly releases an evil upon the city of Philadelphia. Statues come to life when the sun goes down. Potholes swallow people whole. It is pandemonium. And Becket is caught right in the middle.

Her friend Piper changes personality completely. However, Becket still has the boy next door (Luke) to depend on. Unfortunately her father is the police commissioner, so he’s working long hours and gone all the time. Piper and her band of changed people called the Nightstruck keep begging Becket to join them – visiting some horrors upon Becket and her supports if she doesn’t.

So, I think that Nightstruck definitely has an audience and that audience is not me. There were just too many asides and comments to the reader, breaking the fourth wall and a lot of “little did I knows” which come off as so awkward. I also was not entirely here for the horror. It just kind of descends and there’s no way to really catch your breath. I had no real attachment to the characters or the story. It just was not for me — but I am so certain there is an audience for this book.

Readers who revel in dark books will enjoy Nightstruck. I also think actual young adults will get much more enjoyment than I did from this book. If you need something creepy to get you in the Halloween mood, get your hands on the first of Jenna Black’s Nightstruck series – and make it a double feature by grabbing the second book.

I was unable to read this title before the publication and at the moment, I have lost interest in reading the title. Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read the book early.

(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

The night is the enemy, and the city of Philadelphia is its deadliest weapon.
Becket is an ordinary teenage girl, wrestling with the upheaval of her parents' divorce. A studious high school senior, her biggest problems to date have been choosing which colleges to apply to, living up to her parents' ambitious expectations for her, and fighting her secret crush on her best friend's boyfriend. But that all changes on the night she tries to save an innocent life and everything goes horribly wrong.
Unbeknownst to her, Becket has been tricked into opening a door between worlds, allowing a dark magic into the mortal world. As the magic trickles in, the city begins to change at night. Strange creatures roam the streets, and inanimate objects come to life, all of them bloodthirsty and terrifying. The city returns to normal when the sun rises in the morning, and no one can capture the strange changes--such as potholes turning into toothy mouths and wires turning into strangling vines--on film, which prompts the government to declare that the city has been infected with some kind of madness and must be quarantined. Meanwhile, venturing out of one's house at night has become a dangerous proposition, and the moment the sun sets, most of the citizens of the city shut themselves up in their houses and stay there even in the case of dire emergencies.
The magic is openly hostile to most mortals, but there are some individuals it seems to covet, trying to lure them out into the night. While Becket struggles to protect her friends and family from predatory creatures of the night, she is constantly tempted to shrug off all her responsibilities and join them. Joining the night world means being free of not just responsibility, but conscience, and it means no longer caring about the fate of others.

This was a book that could certainly be reviewed in two parts: the story and the characters.

The story, for me, was pretty damned clever and had me flicking through the pages at a good rate. Not overly dense in plot - it is a YA novel, after all - but certainly ticks all the boxes for what makes a great urban fantasy novel: good/bad, romance, a dash of horror/suspense, a good mystery built right in...all those ingredients were just about spot on...

But, oh man, the teen angst was just sooooo annoying. Really, it killed any chance of this book scoring higher than three stars as it made me contemplate whether I was even going to finish the story or not. Extremely annoying...
Also, the cliffhanger ending - didn't care. Wasn't a cliffhanger at all cos you see it coming from 50 pages out. You can tell that the whole thing won't be wrapped up by the end of the book. That left a sour taste in my mouth as well.

However, having said that, this was just the first in the series. Will certainly track down the second book and see if the characters have improved at all...cos the story is just fine.


Paul
ARH

I really enjoy a good horror story, and there is one in here. Unfortunately, it's about ten pages long and it's surrounded by 280 pages of teenage angst and uncertainty.

Beckett is out walking her dog one night when she hears a cry. She's worried that it's a baby that's been abandoned out in the cold. But it's actually evil incarnate and Beckett has brought it into her home. That evil slowly begins to change the city of Philadelphia, but the changes only occur at night where even the inanimate objects are there to lure a foolish soul to their doom.

The changes are wide-spread, and the police and the hospitals are aware of a growing number of 'incidents' taking place in the city, though only Beckett is aware of the cause. Beckett's father is the police commissioner. He had Beckett's mother just finalized a nasty divorce. While Beckett chose to stay with her father rather than move to Boston with her mother, the growing evil means that he has a lot to deal with and isn't home. Beckett also has a best friend, Piper, who is rude and over-bearing when it comes to Beckett. And then there's the guy Beckett is crushing on, but she's too timid to let him know.

Author Jenna Black does a really nice job of setting up the horror in the darkness here, and it grows nicely, spreading like a cancer through the city and through the reader.

For me, however, there was a lack of 'action' or motivation. We get the growing evil and the fear for Beckett, but we have 300 pages of growing evil and not much else. Does Beckett fight this evil? Does she try to warn her father and by extension, the city?

I got so bored reading through this. The opening pages really hooked me, but I slowly grew to be more annoyed by Beckett and her friends than anything else. Just as I stopped caring about the growing evil Black would manage to bring about a paragraph or chapter that renewed my interest in what was happening, but then Beckett would go off and do something that completely made me not care anymore. It was an annoying roller-coaster of a ride for me.

Those teens who enjoy reading about other teens with lots of angst and problems, and who also want to read a good horror story, would probably really get in to this story. I, however, was bored and will look for a good horror story elsewhere.

Looking for a good book? <em>Nightstruck</em> by Jenna Black is a dark story of an un-named evil spreading through a major city at night, and a teen who unwittingly brought it about and her problems as a teen.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

An Electronic Advance Reader Copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley for review. Quotes have been pulled from an e-ARC and may be subject to change.

Imagine a city where there are no rules, and chaos reigns. Where people let go of their inhibitions and murder others. This is the setting and premise of NightStruck. This was a really engaging read! I was never bored. From the start I was so into it. It started off super sinister then just turned into a horror. It actually reminded me of the movie The Purge where people hole up inside their homes because the citizens outside are trying to kill you. Yep this is pretty much the story. I just had one major question.. Why is this happening in the first place? I thought this would be a stand-alone but when it ended like that I knew it wouldn't be.

I had a bit of trouble with the characters. Namely Piper. Ohhhh how I wished Becket grew a pair and just for once stood up to her. She's not your best friend if she manipulates you like that. It drove me crazy how she treated Becket. And the thing is Becket let her. I rolled my eyes at least twice. I loved Bob the dog, he's just great. Luke was cute, but again I didn't condone what they were doing..it wasn't morally right at all.

I did find the book to be super violent and gory. The writing is good, and execution was passable but I was looking to be more emotionally invested in the characters. In this case I wasn't, so I ended up not caring too much about them lol

Nightstruck is an engaging read that will have you turning the pages. Naturally with a big cringe or two because of the gore. You were warned!

RATING 3/5

I'm a huge fan of Jenna's, but this was a book I couldn't get into. Since I wasn't a huge fan of it, I didn't publicly share a review.

Nightstruck was such a fun and engaging little book! Full of terrifying moments and edge-of-your-seat moments, this book has quickly become a favorite!