Book Review: Ripple by Mandy Hubbard

Lexi is cursed with a dark secret. The water calls to her, draws her in, forces her to sing her deadly song to unsuspecting victims. If she succumbs, she kills. If she doesn't, the pain is unbearable. To keep herself and those she cares about safe, she shuts herself off, refusing to make friends or fall in love-again. Because the last time she fell in love with a boy, he ended up dead.

Then Lexi finds herself torn. Against her better judgement, she's opening up again, falling in love with someone new when she knows she shouldn't. But when she's offered the chance to finally live a normal life, she learns that the price she must pay to be free of her curse is giving him up. (From Goodreads)

Best Bits: The concept of sirens is fascinating, and Hubbard does a good job of piquing my interest. Lexi has killed her boyfriend without an inkling of why. I mean, that's rough. She's withdrawn, she has urges to swim/sing, and her dead ex's best friend is chasing her around (okay, that part might not be too horrible). Cole was dreamy, and my favorite part of the book. He was genuinely concerned about Lexi, when I, as the reader, was not. Their romance didn't feel too rushed, and I thought that Hubbard was able to realistically show what it would be like to develop feelings for someone you have to keep a world-changing secret from. Unfortunately that's where the love triangle comes into play, and so do my nit picks.  

Nit Picks: I really wanted to like this one. I've loved everything else I've read by Hubbard, but something about Ripple just didn't work for me. I think that it may have had to do with the way the book was set up. The book begins with Lexi after her first (accidental) kill, and the reader get flashbacks throughout the book that piece together what really happened. Perhaps if the story had started that night I would have been able to understand what was going through her mind as she cut off her friends, and had to come to terms with her terrible power. I'm not sure that the love triangle had enough time to grow. I could really get behind Cole (as I said in Best Bits), but her relationship with Erik was too insta-love for me (although I have a feeling this may have been Hubbard's intention, so take this one as you will). 

Lesson Learned: If you're cursed, make sure you actually tell your kids in case something happens to you.
Ripple 
By Mandy Hubbard
Published by Razorbill
260 Pages
Rating: C