Kira

"On my first day at Warwick High School, if you'd told me I would choose to go to hell for any of the students, let alone Warwick's queen bee, I would have laughed. Or maybe I would have stabbed you with a ballpoint pen (it was kind of a rough day)."

I really loved the premise of this book and was pleasantly surprised by a lot of it. It was interesting and kept me turning pages. I honestly haven't seen a world quite like this one, and that was refreshing in a very oversaturated paranormal market. However, and I can't believe I'm saying this, Sanctum wasn't quite gritty enough for me. There was almost too much romance.

With it being set in one of the circles of Hell, I just really expected it to be darker and a little scarier. I really like Malachi as a love interest for Lela, he was great, but towards the middle of the book the author began to use their twitterpation to carry the plot and it overshadowed the adventure. I am usually a sucker for the love story but in this book it was distracting. Malachi wound up so whipped he lost the strength that had initially attracted me to him, and Lela's mission to save her friend went from being heroic to selfish martyrdom. I lost respect for what she was doing because in the end I didn't agree with her, and it felt like a plot device to set up the next book.

There were several "I would rather beat my head against the wall than read how stupid you're being" moments, which I found disappointing because Lela was very strong, smart, snarky and likable for at least half of the book.That being said, though, I was surprised by the very end and my interest was peaked for the sequel. My last status update was: "I feel like I just watched a three-pointer at the final buzzer. The last 2% saved the book for me."This would not be the first time I didn't care for the first book and had a series really grow on me, so I'm not writing this one off yet. I like the direction it seems to be going.

**Update: You can read my review for the sequel, Fractured, here. I was disappointed and don't plan to continue with this series unless I read some crazy awesome reviews for the last book.