When To Fear The Living
Author: B.L. Brunnemer
Series: The Veil Diaries #3
Genre: Paranormal, Fantasy, YA
Format: Audiobook
____________________________________________
Hi, I’m Alexis Delaney. I’m your average 17-year-old girl. Except I can see the dead. And talk to the dead and help them move on. So..okay, I’m not your average 17-year-old girl. Right now, the Veil is shut off, and the Way is closed. Which means the dead can’t move on, so, they are camping out on my lawn. I’m trying to open the Way, juggle school and, well, deal with my feelings for two of my best friends.
If that isn’t enough, notes have been showing up in my locker since I got back from Christmas vacation. Things are getting creepier as time goes on. He’s actually starting to scare me, to be honest. But with the guys, I’ll be fine. They’ve got my back. No one is crazy enough to take on Zeke. Right?
MY REVIEW
I received a free copy for an honest review.
This review contains spoilers.
I appreciate the subjects that this book brought with its story, but at the same time, it further highlighted Alexi’s stupidity that made me even more infuriated with her and disliked her even more.
When to Fear The Living Continued the relationship developments between her and the guys (as expected), and it’s in this book we finally started to see how their relationships have finally detoured from the originally intended friendship route.
Daniel had basically been demoted from a beloved boyfriend (and good friend) to a hated stalker (damn, how the mighty have fallen). I actually do like how Daniel screwed it up. The black and white (debatable) nature of his actions brought further depth to this side of the story, and the quality of the story in general. I’m really curious about what other people think regarding this, do you support Alexis’ decision to cut Daniel completely off? Or you think Daniel truly loved her and deserve a second chance? To be honest, I’m not that sure either. But I can understand why the guys would be mad – they didn’t even hesitate when they saw her in her worst state, and that makes then very unusual in the best way possible. Daniel reacted more like what a realistic person would do, but it is still very disheartening what he did. So, do you agree?
I’ve read some reviews, and apparently, there were some people who didn’t like how Daniel stuck around in they because they found his presence “useless”. I really disagreed. I think it made more sense for Daniel to act this way not only to not completely “villainize” this character, but also how he should act like this especially if he was truly in love with her.
Remember how right at the begging of the review how this book made me dislike Alexis more because of the stupidity she had shown in this story? I don’t know if it’s because I’m just a more cautious person, but her lack of awareness to her surroundings really pissed me off, especially for her, who is being stalked by a crazy stalker. The perfect example would be when the white car drove by her at least five times in a very suspiciously slow pace. She didn’t even notice it until Zeke pointed it out and at that time I was literally ready to abolish my kindle in pure anger and annoyance.
I am surprisingly happy with the fact that Zeke was the first one to kiss her. To be honest, I had absolutely no idea how this was going to go, and I’m very happy that I was not disappointed. How the kiss went down was also really touching and sweet, and it’s definitely one of the “sequel worthy” ones. The contrast between Zeke’s huge size and Alexis’s tiny height is adorable.
The thing is though, even though there technically is nothing wrong with a tragic backstory, it’s been used as a tool to create more “dense” characters that it’s basically a cliche. So this is why that even though Zeke’s story is tragic and I do feel bad for him, to me, it’s nothing different from anything and everything I’ve read before and hence I find myself a bit apathetic toward it.
I guess I’m giving it a 4/5 score because despite being really hard for me to bear through (not because the story was bad, but because of how painfully scary Alex’s experience in this book is), it was good enough to continue to keep up the momentum of the series and want to make me keep on binging to the next one.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
B.L.Brunnemer has been a devoted reader since she was young. As a child, she was instantly attracted to horror stories. The plot, the suspense, the action. She loved it all. Which, as she grew, branched out into several other genres. But a strong female character always caught her eye. Through the years romance became a big part of her reading. Then she found the Young Adult/New Adult genre. But she had a problem. She never found the romance between most characters to be realistic enough for her. At least in the paranormal romance section.
So, she decided to fix that. She’d been writing for years already and had always struggled to finish a manuscript. Until, she decided to write what she wanted to read.
B.L. Brunnemer doesn’t have any other publications at this time. She’s just a woman, who loves a good story with great characters. And she hopes you’ll love them too.