Poison Princess by Kresley Cole

Poison Princess 
By Kresley Cole
Published: October 2, 2012
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Book 1 in the Arcana Chronicles
Pages: 369

She could save the world—or destroy it.

Sixteen-year-old Evangeline "Evie" Greene leads a charmed life, until she begins experiencing horrifying hallucinations. When an apocalyptic event decimates her Louisiana hometown, Evie realizes her hallucinations were actually visions of the future—and they're still happening. Fighting for her life and desperate for answers, she must turn to her wrong-side-of-the-bayou classmate: Jack Deveaux.

But she can't do either alone.

With his mile-long rap sheet, wicked grin, and bad attitude, Jack is like no boy Evie has ever known. Even though he once scorned her and everything she represented, he agrees to protect Evie on her quest. She knows she can't totally depend on Jack. If he ever cast that wicked grin her way, could she possibly resist him?

Who can Evie trust?

As Jack and Evie race to find the source of her visions, they meet others who have gotten the same call. An ancient prophesy is being played out, and Evie is not the only one with special powers. A group of twenty-two teens has been chosen to reenact the ultimate battle between good and evil. But it's not always clear who is on which side.

My Rating: 5 stars

My Thoughts:
This book was a beautifully crafted, well developed, enticing, compelling page-turner!  This was my first book by Kresley Cole and what a great one it was.  I'd say that this book is similar to Mara Dyer, but post-apocalyptic.  
This is one of the most unique books I've ever read.  There are twenty-two teens who all have special powers.  Sounds super stereotypical doesn't it?  But here's the catch, all of these characters are based off of characters from tarot cards.  Add this to a post-apocalyptic world with zombie-like creatures, slavers, and militias intent on sucking anyone they meet into their forces, you're in for one epic read.
Evie was such a strong protagonist.  She has so much going on, and still she tries to remain upbeat and positive, even though most of the time she feels completely helpless because she can't hunt or fish or really defend herself at all, even though both Evie and the reader can tell that there's something powerful about her just simmering under the surface, waiting to be unleashed.  She also has these hallucinations, you don't know what they are or what they mean or if maybe, they might be real. She also dealt with the apocalypse in such a real way.  She facing a lot of really hard things and she has to learn to survive, she's not one of those characters that's already a supreme survivalist and has no issues whatsoever, you know, actually surviving.
 Jackson, though I was a little bit unsure about him at first, ended up being a fabulous character, one of my favorites from the book.  He was kind of mean, and overly obnoxious, at times and this boy can go from hot to cold faster than anyone I've ever met, but by the end of the book, he definitely redeemed himself.  I was also not completely on board with the Evie/Jackson romance for the first hundred pages or so, then I  was kind of on and off for most of the book, till the last fifty to seventy-five pages where there were things happening and I couldn't deal with it and I ship it so freaking hard now.  
I don't want to talk about the plot too much because I definitely feel that this is one of those books that it's better to go into not knowing a whole lot about.  The summary is fairly vague for a reason people!  But I will say that the plot is fast-paced and draws you in so much that you won't be able to put it down.
Overall, I'd recommend this book to anyone.  I absolutely loved it and I can't wait to get my hands on book two!

Thanks for reading!
Amber