I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Lailah by Nikki Kelly
Series: The Styclar Saga #1
Published by Feiwel & Friends on October 7, 2014
Pages: 416
Format: ARC
Source: the publisher
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Over one million Wattpad readers have made Lailah a sensation!

The girl knows she’s different. She doesn’t age. She has no family. She has visions of a past life, but no clear clues as to what she is, or where she comes from. But there is a face in her dreams – a light that breaks through the darkness. She knows his name is Gabriel.

On her way home from work, the girl encounters an injured stranger whose name is Jonah. Soon, she will understand that Jonah belongs to a generation of Vampires that serve even darker forces. Jonah and the few like him, are fighting with help from an unlikely Allie – a rogue Angel, named Gabriel.

In the crossfire between good and evil, love and hate, and life and death, the girl learns her name: Lailah. But when the lines between black and white begin to blur, where in the spectrum will she find her place? And with whom?

Gabriel and Jonah both want to protect her. But Lailah will have to fight her own battle to find out who she truly is.

A message from Meredith: Hey everyone! Today, I have Cas here with a guest review for Lailah by Nikki Kelly.

You can find Cas on Checkmate Reads and on Twitter!

Without further adieu, here’s Cas’s review! Enjoy!

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Alright, so where should I start with this one? It definitely felt like been there, done that. I really really wanted to like Lailah, I did. Sadly, I couldn’t. Everything just felt like another rift off of Fallen and Twilight. I love books about vampires and angels, so that wasn’t my real problem with the book. The paper characters and love triangle are probably what killed this whole book for me.

Let’s start with Lailah, shall we? I wanted to like her because how cool is it to remember parts of your past lives! She just seemed to me to be too flaky and materialistic for me. She was more worried about going shopping than she was trying to figure stuff out. When a conflict would arise, she would run before trying to sort out a better solution. Very disappointed in that aspect of our heroine. She just was not super relatable to me, and I need a stronger female character than what Lailah provided for me. I’ll fight for Aelin over Lailah anyday!

Ugh, so with any YA book about vampires and angels what else are we missing? A love triangle! Oh joy, more reasons for Lailah to not have her act together. So introduce Jonah, a bad boy vampire, and Gabriel, the ever overly attractive love of all my past lives main angel. Between these three and everyone else trying to get in on this love mess, it really starts to detract from what’s left of the plot. I would just like to put out a PSA that stalkers are not someone you want in your life, run away from them as soon as possible. Don’t let them in your bedrooms! YA tends to overly romanticize bad boys a bit too much, and I felt that Jonah crosses the line to way too creepy. Gabriel is just a jerk.

There was way too much insta-love for me. I prefer to see the relationship blossom and grow into something magical, like Hazel and Gus. I am a huge fan of angels and demons/vampires, and was a bit disappointed in the whole side dimension, not real heaven and hell type thing. Don’t use Angels if you’re afraid of also writing about the existence or absence of God.

I don’t seem myself reading the rest of the series, unless someone thinks that I’m missing out and it’s gotten way better! I do believe in book second chances. But for right now, I’m not super pleased. It sounds like the author had some good ideas, but the execution was not there. Definitely a better story if it’s just for Wattpad.

I would like to thank Meredith for sending me this ARC. I didn’t like it as well as I wanted to, but I’m at least owning up to that. I had such high hopes for this book. Just because I didn’t like it, doesn’t mean that someone else won’t. If you loved Lailah, I’m not dissing you or saying that you have bad taste in books, just that we have different preferences! If you loved it, then that’s great for you. Keep reading! I think I’ve ranted enough for now. :)