Shattered Souls by Mary Lindsey

Shattered Souls by Mary Lindsey


Information.
Pages: 336.
Publication: December 8th 2011/Philomel/Penguin


"Lenzi hears voices and has visions - gravestones, floods, a boy with steel gray eyes. Her boyfriend, Zak, can't help, and everything keeps getting louder and more intense. Then Lenzi meets Alden, the boy from her dreams, who reveals that she's a reincarnated Speaker - someone who can talk to and help lost souls - and that he has been her Protector for centuries.

Now Lenzi must choose between her life with Zak and the life she is destined to lead with Alden. But time is running out: a malevolent spirit is out to destroy Lenzi, and he will kill her if she doesn't make a decision soon." - Goodreads.


Review. 
Shattered Souls instantly grabs attention with it's cover and blurb about ghosts and a good looking guy. However, the story itself, didn't hold my attention as much as I thought it would.
The book's concept was solid and when I began reading, it was a straight into the action with Lenzi, the protagonist, unsure of whether she's going crazy or not. Throw in what seems like a loving boyfriend and some creepy voices and I was good to go. However, this faded pretty fast and the book turned into a petty turned obsession romance and a very predictable ending.


There is a lot going on in Shattered Souls, plot wise, and Lindsey tries to fit everything in. It falls quite flat in certain areas because of this.


I really liked the sound of Lenzi and she seems like a really interesting to read about. She had not only personal fears like the voices she could hear but generic teenager fears also. She had her boyfriend, Zac, to comfort and care for her which was different because in most YA books, if there is a boyfriend at the beginning of the book, he more than likely going to turn into a huge douche and this paves the way for a new male lead. The difference with Zac is, he truly cared about Lenzi. He didn't judge her for her issues but he couldn't express it properly due to his issues with alcohol and pills but deep down all Zac wants to do is be there for Lenzi.


Queue: most beautiful boy girl has ever seen, Lenzi's protector, Alden. A, by the books kind of guy, Alden, for me was a neither love nor hate character for me. He did absolutely nothing for me. He didn't excite me because he rarely did anything interesting. He was just there either talking about ghosts or saying how Lenzi and his relationship has boundaries. 


Yes, onto the relationship aspect of Shattered Souls. This is what irritated me the most. Alden: "No, we cannot be together even though it's all I ever wanted". Kisses Lenzi. "No, we've only known each other a few days." Kisses Lenzi. you get the point! Anyway, Lenzi is just as bad using her I am the speaker and this is what I want line. I began to dislike Lenzi when this started to happen because she decided not to sort her issues with Zac out, thus making her a cheater and yet still being able to play the victim. Alden's and Lenzi's relationship, for me, was formed too fast and seems a little too needy. 


As Shattered Souls reached it's climax, well, actually their was no climax. I felt like I was reading an episode of Scooby-Doo with the bad guy being a terribly written ghost. Enter secondary climax, which also was a failure, containing Alden breaking the rules and us finally getting to see what the IC actually do. The ending wrapped up a little to nicely for me and the last two lines of the book, well, annoyed me a lot. I don't want to spoil it for anyone but you read it, you'll probably get what I mean.

Overall, Lindsey is a good writer and she has some well written scenes, especially the one regarding Lenzi's therapeutic origami. The only badly written area of the Shattered Souls was Smith, the antagonist. It's not a bad book by any means, it is just a book that has too many easily spotted flaws.

Rating: 3/5.