Review: Storm Siren

Title:  Storm Siren
Series:  Storm Siren #1
Author:  Mary Weber (Website | Twitter)
Age Group:  Young Adult
Publisher:  Thomas Nelson
Publication Date:  August 19, 2014
Source:  A copy was provided by the published via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you!

“I raise my chin as the buyers stare. Yes. Look. You don’t want me. Because, eventually, accidentally, I will destroy you.”
In a world at war, a slave girl’s lethal curse could become one kingdom’s weapon of salvation. If the curse—and the girl—can be controlled.
As a slave in the war-weary kingdom of Faelen, seventeen-year-old Nym isn’t merely devoid of rights, her Elemental kind are only born male and always killed at birth — meaning, she shouldn’t even exist.
Standing on the auction block beneath smoke-drenched mountains, Nym faces her fifteenth sell. But when her hood is removed and her storm-summoning killing curse revealed, Nym is snatched up by a court advisor and given a choice: be trained as the weapon Faelen needs to win the war, or be killed.
Choosing the former, Nym is unleashed into a world of politics, bizarre parties, and rumors of an evil more sinister than she’s being prepared to fight . . . not to mention the handsome trainer whose dark secrets lie behind a mysterious ability to calm every lightning strike she summons.
But what if she doesn’t want to be the weapon they’ve all been waiting for?
Set in a beautifully eclectic world of suspicion, super abilities, and monsters, Storm Siren is a story of power. And whoever controls that power will win.

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My Review:  I can sum up my feels after finishing this book in three gifs.  

Seriously, I am so done after that ending.  Before that, I was feeling okay about this novel.  I wasn't totally in love but I enjoyed reading it.  But those last few chapters just completely ruined it for me. 

I'm going to start with what I did like in this book.  First of all, I loved Colin.  He was a side character and one of Nym's friends and I just adored him.  I honestly felt like he should have been the love interest.  He was sweet, caring, and had more conversations with Nym than the actual love interest.  He brought a lot to the story and was well layered and presented.  I also really liked the elemental aspects of this book.  While I'm not 100% positive about all the different facets involving the elementals, I did find myself very interested in all the powers and history of them.   

Okay, now to what I did not like.  

Nymia.  I just could not connect with this character at all.  We knew nothing about her besides her history with her parents, her multiple slave owners, and her elemental abilities.  It's like we knew nothing personal about her.  Like, sure, we knew her past but we didn't really understand her likes and dislikes.  I wanted more from her.  She also was really naive, especially considering all the experiences she had growing up.  One particular instance that really bothered me was when Nym asked another character for information when she new for a fact that they were a traitor and this character was openly threatening her and her friends.  Like, what the hell? 

As for the love interest, I was sort of indifferent to Eogan.  We didn't know tons about him until the end when I bunch of twists happened toward the end involving him.  I also didn't know how old he was.  It seemed like he was really old.  Like, 10-20 years older than Nym because they were always talking about all the other people he had previously trained.  In reality, he was only five years older.  

The world was a little shady to me.  It sounded really beautiful and detailed but there was a lot of aspects that I just didn't understand.  I seemed like it was set in olden times (like medieval) but then there was flying air ships and stuff.  It was like the author expected us to already be familiar with the world before ever having been introduced to it.  She was naming terms and using new words that I just wasn't familiar with and it made it really hard to keep everything in order.  

While the problems I listed above really bothered me, the thing that brought this book down to such a low rating was the ending.  I honestly didn't know what was happening.  Up until the very last page - the very last paragraph I was like "wow, I guess this is a stand alone novel.  Everything is wrapping up so nicely" and then BAM it was ruined.  I feel cheated.  

I probably won't be continuing on with this series.  There were too many things I was frustrated with which is disappointing because I was so hopeful after seeing the cover and reading the blurb.  Hopefully other people enjoy this more than I did. 

“I think some have to fight harder to choose good over evil because the evil’s got it out for them. And maybe it’s because those’re the ones evil knows will become the strongest warriors, recognizing true wickedness when it rears its head.” 

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