Read of The Week: Unbreakable by Kami Garcia

Supernatural meets The Da Vinci Code in this action-packed paranormal thriller, the first book in a new series from New York Times bestselling author Kami Garcia. 
I never believed in ghosts. Until one tried to kill me.

When Kennedy Waters finds her mother dead, her world begins to unravel. She doesn’t know that paranormal forces in a much darker world are the ones pulling the strings. Not until identical twins Jared and Lukas Lockhart break into Kennedy’s room and destroy a dangerous spirit sent to kill her. The brothers reveal that her mother was part of an ancient secret society responsible for protecting the world from a vengeful demon — a society whose five members were all murdered on the same night.

Now Kennedy has to take her mother’s place in the Legion if she wants to uncover the truth and stay alive. Along with new Legion members Priest and Alara, the teens race to find the only weapon that might be able to destroy the demon — battling the deadly spirits he controls every step of the way.

Suspense, romance, and the paranormal meet in this chilling urban fantasy, the first book in a new series from Kami Garcia, bestselling coauthor of the Beautiful Creatures novels.

I’m going to start this reviewing by further more disclaiming the fact that I once, in a galaxy far, far away, did read Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia’s first novel in the Beautiful Creatures series and felt rather indifferent about it. I also never reviewed it and know I’m going to have a much harder time reviewing Unbreakable than I ever would any one of those books.

Now, the question is how can I go about this without insulting someone, or, ahem, getting myself in trouble? Well, you ask, and I’ll tell you: there isn’t any way, so for the benefit of us all I’m just going to come out and say it:

Kami Garcia virtually stole creative license from Supernatural. There is one hundred percent no doubt about it. Even just reading the summary gives you that idea. Then they feel the need to mention it in the excerpt. I don’t even watch Supernatural and from reading the first chapter I knew just how similar the book and the show would end up being. And while I could sit here all day and explain how similar the plot, the threads, the backdrop, the characters all are, instead I’m going to leave you with one of the most outstanding aspects.

Sam Winchester, or Jared Padalecki, depending on what mood you’re in, is ever the sexy, brooding brother of our two Supernatural boys, and Jared Lockhart plays his mirror-lad equal in Unbreakable. Did you catch it? Please tell me you caught it. Sam is Jared. Jared is Sam. They hunt demons. They are quiet and misunderstood. They are the same damn person.

Again, this may just be me being melodramatic but there are so many other parallels between the two it’s almost unrealistic. It’s fine to be inspired by television, and take bits and pieces of it and put it into your work, but when you completely rip the material off the screen and slap it on a page, there’s a problem. Unbreakable could have been fan fiction, especially what with how painstakingly rusty Kami Garcia’s writing style always seems to be. That was kind of brutal, wasn’t it? I’m sorry, I guess.

Now, on some otherworldly level I did enjoy this book, and maybe it’s because I’m meant to be a fan of Supernatural, or because I really fancied imagining the Winchester brothers as the main male leads, but Unbreakable‘s overall story wasn’t half bad. Update: I’ve never watched Supernatural before reading Unbreakable and it wasn’t until then that my sister finally bribed me into watching. Second update: it’s not bad. Color me impressed.

This book could have been a score for Garcia had she decided to up the romance, clean up her writing and maybe not completely rip off a television series.

The book’s excerpt claims Unbreakable is also like Buffy and I could not ever stress how much this book is not like Buffy. I’ve never read a supernatural thriller so unlike Buffy. Then again maybe that’s because it was all overshadowed by just how Supernatural ripped this story was. There’s also a disclaimer of romance to die for on the back flap when I can only remember four or five pages of instant romance that was not really “to die for” at all. The love connection was all thought up on our main leads own and felt like it happened way more in her head than anywhere else. Not to mention her mother died less than a week ago and the girl is barely even disturbed by it? Garcia could have taken the time to develop the romance and obvious emotional trauma this girl needed to go through but instead she chose to rush things which in turn made the story feel unnatural on all sides.

I hate to say it, but as much as I disliked this book as a whole, I know that eventually I’ll get to reading the second novel in the Supernatural book series.

Oh, eh, whoopsie. *laughs nervously*

Rating: 6/10