Sanctum (Guards of the Shadowlands #1) [BOOK] by Sarah Fine

Sanctum by Sarah Fine.
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SANCTUM (GUARDS OF SHADOWLANDS#1)

Written by: Sarah Fine
Genre: Young Adult Novel
Format: Kindle

Rating: 9 out of 10. For reals.
WARNING: MAY BE IDEOLOGICALLY SENSITIVE.

Lela, the main protagonist, has the best friend named Nadia. They are tighter than two catfish in a skillet. Nadia though, decides she's had it with life and offs herself. Lela attempted suicide before, so somehow she's connected to Nadia's brain and being and gets visions through her eyes...enough to know that she's near the Suicide Gates and is about to go into the city. Lela goes to the beach/cliff-side where they used to go and is a clumsy fool who falls off the side and goes barreling down into the water. She's dead now too. Yay, they can have a big dead party! Oh wait, Lela ends up in the peaceful, heavenly 'Countryside.' Lela though, having visions of Nadia, decides to just say "Eh, might as well go find her and go through the Suicide Gates. She deserves it." Lela runs into the ever-hot, also dead, Jewish Malachi, who off'd himself during Hitler's regime. Together, they fight 'Mazkin' which are evil-like creatures that come from a place so awful, that they would choose Hell over it. They possess human bodies, and send the human soul back to the Mazkin home world instead. Only way to release the human soul, is to kill the Mazikin in the body it possesses. Even though I've also read hundreds of pages of this book, sounds like I still don't know how to spell the name of these flippin' creatures. They eventually find Nadia, and decide to go to the Sanctum, a place where the Judge determines your fate. If you aren't ready before you go, you get damned to eternity, or as a Guard (like Malachi) for a certain amount of time, that no one knows how long it is.

It's Beautiful, Meme Face.
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So the plot is absolutely fantastic. Which is weird, cause its YA and has a romance in it. Like....a better down Twilight with cooler supernatural influences. Seriously, everyone is taking supernatural things like wolves, vampire, et cetera....or post-apocalypse. No one, that I know, besides Dante Alighieri, made a decent afterlife/hell book. I was glued. Like....putting my eyeballs on the screen.

Only thing keeping this from a ten (10)? Lack of character development on Lela's part. We are left to presume (not assume...because then that'd make an ass out of you and me,) that the flashbacks that Lela gets are a result of character growth that took place before the story. What's the point of the story AT ALL, if your main character doesn't change? I mean, she does come to love Malachi, but she's had a lady boner for him since like, seriously...day one. Telling the story from Lela's view might not be the way I would have done it. I would have put it from Malachi's. He found Lela, they go to find her friend...his own comrade falls, and he shows a bundle of changing emotions and love. It's not enough to really detract from the story having it from Lela's view....I just wouldn't.

If you can deal with some crap that's intense and like gritty YA novels, seriously a phenomenal read. Couldn't have chosen a better book.

This review was conducted as an honest opinion of the blogger, Kate Busto. In no way shape or form, does she take credit for the book. All words used are hers unless quoted and stated otherwise. Book was bought off Kindle store and is not pirated material. This disclaimer is really long and the author wants to make sure all bases are covered. All photos, that are not original, are either credited or with links back to original source, as also not to take credit to someone else's copyrighted works.