CRYSTAL FIRE by Jordan Dane

Rating: F
Release Date: 11/26/13
Synopsis:
Because of what you are, the Believers will hunt you down.

A storm is brewing on the streets of LA, one that has intensified since a tragic and deadly confrontation claimed an innocent life.

While Gabriel Stewart trains his army of teen psychics to stop Alexander Reese--the obsessed leader of the Believers--the fanatical church becomes more bent on the annihilation of all Indigo and Crystal children. They're silencing the voices of the telepathic hive, one soul at a time, with frightening experiments cruelly executed on vulnerable minds.

When the Believers torture a mysterious homeless boy, Oliver Blue, they brainwash him into betraying his own. The boy becomes a deadly pawn to take Gabriel down. As the fires of chaos burn around him, Gabe is running out of time. He'll need to confront his past--and the man who made him--before the hope of peace for the future is silenced forever.

My thoughts on the book:
These covers are so pretty, and the synopses always sound so good. However, the books always disappoint. The lack of character development, the boring writing, and the tedious plot made this book pure torture for me to read. I'm done with this series and this author. I gave it one more try for the simple reason that sometimes first books aren't the best representations of authors' work. In this case, the first book represented the awful writing perfectly. I'm sorry I even requested this one in the first place. 

Rayne is obnoxious and stupid. I really can't stand her character, and she hasn't grown in the least over the past two books. She just gets in the way and does dumb stuff all the time. I really hated reading from her perspective. Gabriel doesn't have much personality, so he bored me to death. I really didn't care what happened to him or the other people as long as the dullness stopped. Lucas is a pansy, in my opinion, and he needs to toughen up. He also annoyed me. Raphael's character changes drastically, and I just didn't buy it. Honestly, I just didn't like any of the characters.

The pacing is slow-as-molasses, and the plot is dull. Things jump around a lot and don't connect well. The writing is pretty awful, and the romances are just ridiculous. The most annoying romance to me is Rayne and Gabriel. Just yuck. Also, the alternating points of view gave me a headache. The voices of the characters were similar enough that I couldn't really tell one from the other. Therefore I had to stop and make a conscious effort to remember whose POV I was reading several times. There were 5+ points of view, and that is just too many. 

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. I did not enjoy it at all, nor did I enjoy the first book in the series. I know a lot of people liked this book, but it's obviously not for me.