[Review] Born At Midnight by C.C Hunter

 Title: Born At Midnight

Author: C.C Hunter

Publisher: St Martin's Griffin (March 17th, 2011)

Kylie Galen is your typical teenaged girl who has never broken a rule and lived life as a good girl should. But having to deal with her parents’ separation, Kylie makes a reckless decision one night that leads to her getting arrested and brought to the police station. Does it matter that she was innocent? Not really. So Kylie finds herself on her way to Shadow Falls, where she thinks all the kids are weirdos or freaks and her normality is actually standing out, instead of helping her blend in.

Shadow Falls is, as you may have guessed, a camp for supernatural youths. There are werewolves, vampires, faeries, etc, and these teens are there to learn how to properly make use of their “gifts”. However, Kylie is a special case because no one knows exactly what she is, except she’s supernatural and has the uncanny ability to see ghosts. Life becomes more than a little difficult for Kylie as she struggles to come to terms with the fact that she’s not as ordinary as she had always believed all her life. Not to mention that one of her roommates is a witch, and the other, a vampire with a passion for blood!

The supernatural world C.C Hunter introduces does not stray far from the usual YA paranormal fare, but the characters make the story vivid and fun to read. Miranda and Della, Kylie’s roommates, were likeable characters who seemed just like normal teenaged girls with a quirky sense of humor. Derek and Lucas both sounded incredibly swoon-worthy but with totally different personalities; I won’t be surprised if there’s a Team Derek and Team Lucas! As for Kylie, she made a pretty relatable protagonist as it was easy to connect with her and feel the emotional turmoil she was going through. Although she did come off as judgmental and spoilt in the beginning, I slowly started feeling sympathetic towards her situation. She also became funnier as the story progressed and nicer as well. While I did grow to like Kylie by the end of the story, I still didn’t understand why Derek, Lucas and Trent (her ex) all fell so deeply for her. I mean, come on! How often do you see 3 incredibly hot and mostly decent guys falling for one girl?

If you like paranormal romance and love triangles, you’ll probably like Born At Midnight. I enjoyed this book (other than the love triangle) and am looking forward to seeing how the loose ends are tied up and missing gaps filled in the next installment of the series.