Darkness Falls by Jessica Sorensen

When the disease spread through the world, people had no choice but to go into hiding. The Colony is hidden deep underground, far away from the vampires—humans that were transformed by the disease. The vampires are hideous, starving, and they will kill any human they come across.

Seventeen-year-old Kayla is a Bellator, a warrior that protects The Colony. In order to survive, there are three rules she must follow:

Rule #1—Never go out after dark.
Rule #2—Always carry a weapon.
Rule #3—No matter what, never EVER get bit.

But what happens when the rules Kayla has always lived by can no longer apply?

The synopsis for this book promises so much but unfortunately, it just didn't deliver. It had good fighting scenes and dramatic flair but characters were flat, it was vague on the explanations and with so much was going on, it was hard to follow. Which is unfortunate because I really wanted to like this. 

I did finish this book, as annoying as it was; it was addictive in a 'have to know' sort of way. It continually hinted at revealing secrets but just made more questions! And as I already mentioned, it was incredibly plot heavy with so many half-explained details that made my head spin. However, there were many little mistakes that frustrated me more than the confusing plot; Sorensen had a really odd and often non-existent ways of showing the passing of time, which confused me beyond belief when we suddenly moved from place to place. Also, I could forgive the question marks in the wrong place, but I actually yelled at the kindle when they used the wrong 'there/their'!

Now, onto the characters. The protagonist Kayla was incredibly boring, considering she had awesome fighting skills, could feel people's fears and lived in a world where vampiric monsters roamed. She was supposed to be awesome but instead was pretty weak-willed and inconsistent; I wanted her to stand up for herself and stop messing around with confusing people. As for the "love interest", I get the impression we were supposed to like Aiden and he did had his moments but he was a serial liar! I just could not trust him, nor hardly anyone else while they continued to lie and hide behind superficial fears. 

So, an excellent premise but nothing really worked the way it was supposed to; the plot was confusing, the characters inconsistent and unlikeable, and the whole story not very well executed. The only thing that did mostly work was the writing. Apart from a few silly grammatical errors, it was imaginative and full of pretty descriptions of the settings and new world order. 

Published 14th March 2012.