Review: Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey

Author: Amy Garvey

Genre: Paranormal

Pages: 292

Published: September 20th, 2011

Publisher: Harper Teen

Rating: 2/5 Stars

"It was a beautiful, warm summer day, the day Danny died.
Suddenly Wren was alone and shattered. In a heartbroken fury, armed with dark incantations and a secret power, Wren decides that what she wants--what she "must" do--is to bring Danny back.
But the Danny who returns is just a shell of the boy Wren fell in love with. His touch is icy; his skin, smooth and stiff as marble; his chest, cruelly silent when Wren rests her head against it.
Wren must keep Danny a secret, hiding him away, visiting him at night, while her life slowly unravels around her. Then Gabriel DeMarnes transfers to her school, and Wren realizes that somehow, inexplicably, he can sense the powers that lie within her--and that he knows what she has done. And now Gabriel wants to help make things right.
But Wren alone has to undo what she has wrought--even if it means breaking her heart all over again."~Goodreads

I got Cold Kiss last year as an Amazon freebie.  I'd heard great things about it and the sequel was coming out so I thought I'd give it a shot.  The only thing I really knew about the plot at the time was that it involved a girl raising her boyfriend from the dead.  I expected it to be a fun, if sort of cheesy, read.  Unfortunately I found that instead of fun, it was kind of gross and more than a little disturbing.  That's all fine and good if that's what the author is going for, but I feel like this one just missed the mark.

LIKES:

• Exploding squirrels, geriatric cats and other things that make me giggle:  There were some things in the story that gave it personality and humor.  Wren has magical powers that she doesn't know how to control and this can cause some major outbursts when she gets freaked out.  This includes the downfall of a particularly unlucky squirrel who happens to be in the line of fire.  This sort of dark humor mixed with real-life everyday problems like a pet cat who seems to suffer from feline dementia could have been used to really give the story some much-needed levity.  Unfortunately these were few and far between and it just wasn't enough to take my mind off of the ick-factor of the book.
• There is some heart to the story:  even though this wasn't my favorite story, there were times where I was drawn into Wren and Danny's plight.  There were some scenes that were very emotional and really touched on grief, loss and sacrifice.  

DISLIKES: 

• Gross:  By this point in my reading life, I've read and loved plenty of love stories about the undead.  Of course usually they are vampires or at least they don't look like/smell like zombies.  This allows me to ignore the fact that our hero should be rotting away in a box somewhere.  Unfortunately there were too many scenes where Wren and Danny were kissing and Wren kept talking about how cold he was and how he smelled like dirt and dead leaves (or, you know, a graveyard).  In the meantime, Danny keeps wanting to go farther and farther and I couldn't help but be grossed out.
• Gabriel or The Guy With The Worst Timing Ever:  seriously dude, this girl's dead boyfriend is living in the garage and you're going in for the kiss?  So, not the time.  I just do not understand why we needed an undead love triangle.  It didn't add much to the story and frankly I would be pissed if some guy kept hitting on me after he found out about my zombie slave boyfriend.  Timing is everything guys.
• I just didn't care about the characters:  They all seemed pretty foolish to me.  Wren and Gabriel for the reasons mentioned above and Danny because, well, he's dead.  He only ever thinks about Wren and is either lost without her or physically attacking the guy who's trying to be her new boyfriend (which to be fair is pretty understandable).  

Overall, I just didn't care for this one.  It wasn't terrible, but it just wasn't for me.  The writing style is nice and the concept had some promise, but I don't think I'll be checking out the next one.

Let me know if you've read Cold Kiss and what you thought down below!