Format: Advanced Reader Edition
ISBN 9780061662690
390 pages
Series? Yes
Rating: PG-13
Source: FirstLook Program
Challenge: None
GoodReads
After years of frequent moves following her mother’s death, Chloe Saunders’s life is finally settling down. She is attending art school, pursuing her dreams of becoming a director, making friends, meeting boys. Her biggest concern is that she’s not developing as fast as her friends are. But when puberty does hit, it brings more than hormone surges. Chloe starts seeing ghosts–everywhere, demanding her attention. After she suffers a breakdown, her devoted aunt Lauren gets her into a highly recommended group home.
At first, Lyle House seems a pretty okay place, except for Chloe’s small problem of fearing she might be facing a lifetime of mental illness. But as she gradually gets to know the other kids at the home–charming Simon and his ominous, unsmiling brother Derek, obnoxious Tori, and Rae, who has a “thing” for fire–Chloe begins to realize that there is something that binds them all together, and it isn’t your usual “problem kid” behaviour. And together they discover that Lyle House is not your usual group home either…
This is not the first time that I have read this book. Nor is it the second.
I first got this book back when the HarperCollins FirstLook program first began. I had stumbled across the program on my quest to find more and better books and was not yet blogging nor did I even know what a blog was a the time. So I found a way to get a free book if I filled out the application and being a person who wanted to see what the odds were of me actually winning (because everyone knows no one really wins in those things) I put my information in the correct place and forgot about it.
Well, needless to say: I did indeed win. I was surprised and excited. So excited that the first time that I tried to read the book I could not really get into the book. I had never before won anything and I was on a high. Like what happens when anyone bids on eBay.
I did not end up reading the book and I sent in a generic review about how I really liked the book and I would recommend it to all of my friends. Yeah, right. None of my friends willingly read books and the few that did read only read manga. This book was so not what they would have read.
It was only after I stumbled across another of Kelley Armstrong's books when I was looking for a single book where the werewolf turns into an actual wolf and I liked it that I decided to give The Summoning another chance.
I ended up loving it. It could do no wrong in my eyes.
Yet after countless reads later I will admit that it is not perfect. I still really like it but I am not blindly devoted to the book. Not that I ever was, but I hope that someone gets the point. Moving on.
So I really liked Chloe for a lot of reasons. She was different than many of the main female characters that were becoming so popular in Young Adult books. She had flaws but we were not forced to hear how they only made her more unbelievably awesome. She was smart but not a genius and she loves movies. She has a stutter but it is only during certain situations. The best part was that she picked her battles and had actual common sense. After reading about one main character after another going in to danger completely blind or on good occasions half-blind it was nice to read about someone who used logic and who when logic finally failed her she actually learned to accept it before the first book was over.
I did not like Tori. I still don't really like her even after three books so much as I accept her role in the books and move on.
Love. There is a ghostly love triangle throughout the book. Which is how I like it. It is not the center of attention so much as a part of the book that is solely created in the readers head.
There is this scene in the book that involves Chloe and Derek and you'll just have to guess that from that point forward put me firmly in the Team Derek Camp. It was going to happen. It had to happen. I am usually really good at guessing couples unless it involves a character I dislike almost as good as I am at picking a favorite character that will get the least amount of page time or die at some point in the series. It just happens and I have learned very well how to completely ignore what I don't want to read. (Sirius Black is alive and Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter are not married!!! Case in point.)
And then I got to the cliffhanger. Evil. The book ends with Chloe deciding to try to summon Liz who we are sure is a ghost. Then queue the fading to black. Nothing. Zippo. Nada.
Despite the shameless cliffhanger I still begged my mom to drive me to the store so that I could buy the second book: The Awakening when the book came out.
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