A Review for Isle of Night (The Watchers #1) by Veronica Wolfe

Posted by Donna
Published Date: September 6th, 2011
Finished Date: January 17th, 2012
Publishers: New American Library
Source: Bought - 2012 TBR Reading Challenge
Format: Paperback
Pages: 302 
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The Blurb from Goodreads: Is life offering fewer and fewer options? Then join the dead. When Annelise meets dark and seductive Ronan, he promises her a new life-if she has the courage to chance the unknown. Now, she's whisked away to a mysterious island and pitted against other female recruits to become a Watcher-girls who are partnered with vampires and assist them in their missions. To survive and become a Watcher, Annelise has to beat out every other girl, but she's determined to do so, because to fail doesn't mean dishonor-it means death.
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The Review: I bought Isle of Night way back in September and since then I’ve been eagerly awaiting for the right time to finally read it. Before reading it, it was one of my most highly anticipated books but now after reading it, it’s undoubtedly one of the biggest disappointments.

                                                                            

The story follows the life of Annelise, a girl who lives in a small town and cannot wait to get out of it. When her opportunity to enrol in College comes earlier than most kids her ages she jumps at the chance to go. When a mysterious and gorgeous guy named Roman comes into her life before she enrols in College, she suddenly finds herself agreeing to go to a mysterious island with him. Once there, she realises the Island isn’t what she originally thought; she’s actually being forced to join other female’s who are being recruited to become Watchers – girls who are partnered with vampires to assist them in dangerous missions. All Annelise needs to do is survive but she also has to beat every other girl to become number one, because if she fails - is will lead to her death.

Sounds awesome right? Well, after reading I’d have to disagree. I wanted to love this story but I couldn’t and eventually the cons outweighed the pros leading me to rate this book a 1.5 out of 5.

What I didn’t like:

-          Annelise as a character; even though she was very smart and brave, she actually very naïve and very unsure of herself, almost to the point were I’d say she insecure of herself. She is always worrying what other people think and that other people will pick on her because she is super smart and she doesn’t think she’s pretty enough. I found it very unrealistic that a girl like Annelise couldn’t be confident in herself while coming across strong as the same time. Maybe I could put this down to her age because after all she’s only 17 but I’m not sure.  I also found her to be very whiney and frankly quite annoying. She also contradicts herself so much that it was slightly headachy to read about it. It's a shame - I wanted to like Annelise but I couldn't.

-          There were key points in this book that were big events and as a reader, when you finally get to the events, in my opinion they just weren’t long enough. They only happened over a spam of 2 to 4 pages at the most. It was hard to imagine the situation that Annelise was in because it was so short, it almost didn't feel real. I wanted more descriptions, more excitement and more danger but it’s hard to get all that in only a certain amount of pages.

-     The storyline itself was interesting but that's about as far as it went for me. I felt it was quite flat and there just wasn't any build up to get you excited. Again, it just felt flat.

-     I love a good romance story and not every story needs to have one. This book only very slightly touches on a romance (which is okay) but it was very frustrating. Questions like are they or aren’t they kept popping up and I was dying for something to happen between Annelise and Ronan but nothing does. I’m not even sure something will even happen in the next book, so I was very disappointed with the outcome.

What I liked:

-         I liked the premise of this story even as brutal as it was, it was very interesting and this was the main reason I kept reading.

-         Ummm......I can't think of anything else I liked???? =(

Overall, Isle of Night was a fantastic idea but it honestly just fell flat for me - so much that I just couldn't enjoy it. I was looking for a new kick ass series  that I could really get into but unfortunately this wasn't the one for me.