Forbidden by Lori Adams

Forbidden
By Lori Adams
Published: April 15, 2014
Publisher: Flirt
Pages: 432
Book 1 in The Soulkeepers series

Lori Adams gives New Adult a haunting paranormal twist with the first novel of The Soulkeepers, a series that blends ancient legends and new myths with an enchanting mix of thrills, humor, and high drama.

When Sophia St. James learns that she’ll be moving from Los Angeles to a podunk town somewhere in Connecticut for her senior year of high school, she isn’t expecting an otherworldly encounter. But there is more to Haven Hurst than meets the eye: it’s home to a family of Guardian Angels, and she is the only one who can see them in spirit form. Sophia soon realizes she wants to see much more of Michael, an irresistible yet volatile Guardian who seems drawn to her too.

As Michael battles his forbidden desire for the beautiful young newcomer, one of Hell’s most notorious Demon Knights arrives. Handsome and charismatic, Dante has come to claim the reincarnated soul of his lost lover trapped in Sophia. Cursed with the demon of Persuasion living inside him, Dante will use his seductive charms to lure Sophia into a dangerous game that ends with the kiss of death—unless Michael, who has captured Sophia’s heart, can now capture her soul.

*Novel provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

Opening Thoughts
This review is going to be really hard to write because I read this book over such a long time span. It took me almost two and a half months to read this book, and it's not even that long, it's about 350 pages, which normally would take me two to four days to read. I don't really know why it took me so long, because it's not that I didn't enjoy it, but it definitely didn't hook me. The first chapter was really interesting, but then we went to a couple of chapters that were just major info dumps, which doesn't always bother me but they were done very poorly and I had a very hard time getting through them. 

Characters
Overall, I did like Sophia's character, but I was really annoyed with her at several points, especially during the climax. I felt that there were a lot of points where there was this insane shit going on and Sophia didn't even question it, she was just like, oh yeah, I'm totally satisfied with not knowing anything about what's going on so the reader didn't get any information, but I really needed the information. 
I thought that Michael's character was good but I hated the way he withheld so much information from Sophia, even after he was given permission to tell her everything, so he didn't even have the excuse that he wasn't allowed to tell her. He expected her to figure things out that there was no way she would've have ever figured out because there were things he didn't even tell her existed, yet she was expected to know that this person was this, even though she didn't know that was even a thing. I did ship him and Sophia really, really hard and it was really frustrating for me that it took them almost to the end of the book to get together.
Dante irritated me to no end. I hated the chapters that were told in his perspective. His back story was really complicated and I don't remember getting a lot of information about it, though I may just not remember it since I read it so long ago. I think that we needed like a novella or something about that, though I don't think I'd actually read it, because I didn't enjoy the book enough to pay for it. 

Plot
The plot is not overly enticing. It's interesting, but there are super long periods where you don't learn anything, and then huge info dumps where I couldn't even process everything at the same speed as I was reading it. The concept is pretty common, it isn't anything special, so if you're looking for something really unique then this isn't for you. 
This book is so much about the romance between Sophia and Michael, but it takes them the entire book to get together, which I really didn't understand. There is some good humor that made me smile, but I never laughed out loud. The writing was fine, but nothing overly special. 

Overall, this book was good. It wasn't great, and it wasn't bad, it was just good. I enjoyed it but I don't think that I'll ever reread it. I'd recommend it if you think that you'll really enjoy it, but if not, then don't waste your time.

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Amber