The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong

SPOILER ALERT!!!! IF YOU HAVE NOT READ The Summoning--Darkest Powers, Book 1, AND WANT TO, DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW YET!!!

If you had met me a few weeks ago, you probably would have described me as an average teenage girl—someone normal. Now my life has changed forever and I’m as far away from normal as it gets. I'm a living science experiment—not only can I see ghosts, but I can raise the dead without even trying. Trust me, that is not a power you want to have. Ever. I’m running for my life with three of my supernatural friends and we have to find someone who can help us gain our freedom back before the Edison Group finds us first. Or die trying.

This is Book Two in the Darkest Powers trilogy, and I think I liked this one even more than The Summoning. There was that GIANT twist at the end of Book One that made me want to pick this one up immediately. I was trying to figure out how it could possibly get better (well, technically worse)... and then it did!

In Book One, I wasn't a huge fan of Derek-- I was more "Team Simon". That completely changed for me in this book. Not that I don't still like Simon, I just understand Derek better. You learn A LOT more about his background and his life in this book and he gained my sympathy vote, for sure. Not only symapthy though, I just grew to genuinely like his character. He is stubborn and pig-headed and has dictator-like tendencies at times.... but only to protect the people he cares about. I can't wait to see how the "final chapter" of this story unfolds for him....

This book was infuriating and heart-wrenching and amusing and sometimes, again, creepy... There was one scene in Book One that particularly stands out to me as horrifying-- my stomach still churns when I think about it. And this book didn't disappoint in that area. There was most definitely a scene like that in this book. Luckily, there's only one that's REALLY awful and the rest are bearable.

This is definitly not a book to read late at night, when you're home alone-- unless you aren't a wuss (like me). I actually still did read it at night, but I had to watch TV after to get my mind off of it. It's just too difficult to put down!! So, suffer through the gore-- you won't be disappointed!