Review - Eerie by C.M. McCoy

Title: Eerie

Author: C.M. McCoy

Category/Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

Publication Date: December 19th, 2015

Hailey’s dreams have always been, well...vivid. As in monsters from her nightmares follow her into her waking life vivid.

When her big sister goes missing, eighteen-year-old Hailey finds the only thing keeping her safe from a murderous 3,000-year-old beast is an equally terrifying creature who has fallen “madly” in love with her. Competing to win her affection, the Dream Creature, Asher, lures her to the one place that offers safety—a ParaScience university in Alaska he calls home. There, she studies the science of the supernatural and must learn to live with a roommate from Hell, survive her ParaScience classes, and hope the only creature who can save her from an evil immortal doesn’t decide to kill her himself.

"EERIE, full of voice and romance, is a thrilling and beautifully crafted story that had me up late, racing through the pages to get to the end. " - Author Brenda Drake

Goodreads 

Buy Links: Amazon

3 “Interesting concept + problematic LI” Stars

ARC provided by the Author

Thank you!

I wanted to love “Eerie”.  I really did. I’ve been waiting for paranormal to make a comeback for a while, and this story seemed interesting and unique enough to be successful.

Unfortunately, I spent too much time trying to figure out my feelings toward the love interest to fully enjoy this book.

The story started out with enough intriguing elements to keep me interest and turning pages. The MC, Hailey, has been dreaming about a being that has been stuck on Earth for way too long and wants to go back to his “home”. Stuck with him are other creatures like him, and some of them are turning mad and evil because they can’t go back.

Except Hailey’s dreams are not just that…

Asher, the being that visits Hailey in her dreams, also follows (stalks) her in the real world. He’s obsessed with her in a heavier-than-Edward way, and he’s too scary to make me include him in the “okay-stalker” list I pretend not to keep. Because of what Hailey is and what her death could mean to his people, Asher doesn’t know if he should kill her or tell her that he already loves her.

Why does he love her? I’m still not sure.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d be all over that dilemma (I LOOOVEEE the kiss or kill romance) if Asher had been a little more normal and a little less completely creepy. And I don’t only mean creepy in a stalkerish-way. He continuously threatens Hailey and her friends. He hurts them. He pretty much tells Hailey he spends half of his time considering if he should kill her and… yeah, that’s just enough for me to go “no, dude, just stay away from me.”

The problem is: Hailey doesn’t.

I guess my biggest problem isn’t Asher per se, because his indecisiveness makes sense.  Hailey’s death would mean finally getting what he’s been wanting for way too long. But since he likes her, he can’t kill her. For a paranormal book, the premise has its merit. A lot of merit, if I’m honest.

The problematic thing is Hailey’s reaction – or lack of reaction. Instead of behaving like what one would expect from a “normal” person, she just goes along with everything. So my sister was kidnapped and she might’ve been killed by an evil being that now wants me? Oh, okay. The boy who says he wants me, also wants me dead? Oh, okay, let’s hug and kiss. The other boy who’s interested in me isn’t human? Oh, okay, let’s fall in love with him too. And then she gets a scholarship to go to study something paranormal in Alaska and when she gets there the craziest things happen and she’s once again… yeah, okay with everything.

Let me stop here and say that I loved… loved the creepy, unique and super interesting atmosphere the author created once Hailey went to college. It was like a HP-college-world with all these new rules, new creatures and new events. It was fun, and I wanted more. But Hailey should’ve at least shown a little surprise… or why not have her know about everything from the beginning then? It didn’t make much sense to introduce her as this normal girl who had no idea a supernatural side existed, but then have her act like nothing as new to her.

Hailey’s non-surprised reaction lasted the entire book and was even more confusing when it came to Asher. I don’t know why she likes him. I wish I did, but I don’t. Some of the things he did were awful—like the thing with her sister, for example. And Hailey wasn’t even shocked or mad to learn that. Or anything else he did. So since she wasn’t mad or disgusted by some of those things, I felt like I needed to feel that for me and for her, you know?

So unfortunately, I didn’t like Asher and Hailey together at all.

This book does have a love triangle, so there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy it if you choose the other end of that triangle. Finn, the guy who secretly loves Hailey, is a little better than Asher. But not a lot. He treats her like crap for a long time before he starts acting like a decent being. When he does, the chemistry between them is really, really good.  So good I found myself shipping them a little. Hailey even falls for him. But then something happens, and it’s like someone erased her thoughts and within minutes she’s already in love with Asher again. I mean… girl, no.

The problem I see with this book is: to me, this is paranormal romance, which means the romance has to be really good, but this wasn’t. I couldn’t connect with Hailey. I didn’t like Asher at all. And I liked Finn, but not enough to forget I didn’t like Hailey.

Aside from the unique world, something else I really liked was Hailey’s friendship with Giselle. In fact, Giselle was my favorite character here. She was sarcastic, funny, intriguing and strong, everything I wanted Hailey to be. She was also not fooled by Asher’s beauty. She saw through him and tried to warn Hailey about him more than once. When around Giselle, Hailey was a much more likable character.

Overall, this an interesting and unique paranormal story with a love triangle that didn’t work for me, but with a vivid and creative new world that kept me wanting to read more.

*If you liked this review (or not), if you read the book (or not), come say hello and leave your comments bellow.