About.com Rating

Brigid Kemmerer starts off her Elementals series with an excellent page-turner of a story. It's got high school drama, teens with powers, and a love triangle (but don't let that put you off), and would probably best be classified as "paranormal romance", though folks who don't read para-rom definitely shouldn't pass it over because of it genre. This is, pure and simple, good storytelling.

Publication Information

• Full title:Storm

• Series: The Elemental Series (#1)
• Author: Brigid Kemmerer
• Publisher: K Teen (Kensington)
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN: 9780758272812 (paperback), 9780758280053 (e-book), B006YBRK52 (Kindle e-book AISN)

 

High School Blows

Becca is an almost-seventeen-year-old high school student who made a mistake at a party, got taken advantage of, and now has every boy (and most of the girls) spreading rumors about how she sleeps with all the boys in school. One evening after leaving a self-defence class, she comes across two older boys beating up a kid in the parking lot, and steps in to help the boy escape.

Chris Merrick is the youngest of four brothers, and just coming into his powers as a water elemental. Becoming an elemental is exciting, and terrifying, and it makes him a target for his family's enemies who would like nothing better than for him to lose control so they can have him dealt with.

When Becca helps Chris, the Merricks' enemies think she's one of them -- a rogue elemental -- making her a target.

She knows she should stay as far away from them as possible, but she's also drawn to Chris. And there's "New Kid," Hunter, who is sweet and kind and doesn't believe the rumors about her. And best of all, he's got nothing to do with all the weird elemental powers that swirl around Chris.

 

Stormy Hearts

Like a lot of YA books with elements of romance, Storm has a love triangle. Becca is attracted to both Hunter and Chris, and they are both interested in her. She likes them each for different reasons, though they both have drawbacks, too. Kemmerer could very easily have slipped into an annoying melodramatic rivalry between the boys, and let Becca swoon with indecision. But she doesn't do that (thankfully!).

Love triangles can be very tiresome, and one of the reasons I liked Storm so much is that Kemmerer pulled off a love triangle that I not only believed in, but enjoyed. It works because all three of the characters are fully realized. They all have good points and not-so-good points, and Becca, especially, is so well done that we fall in love right along with her -- complete with confusion and uncertainty. But the question of "which boy?" never actually comes up. Becca's in no hurry, and though she's attracted to both boys (and even spends quite a lot of time kissing one of them), she never feels like she has to choose. She gets to know them both, and in the end, events make her choice for her.

Rough Talk

Although fictional dialogue is nothing like how people actually talk (try transcribing a conversation word for word sometime), good dialogue makes us believe that's how people actually talk. And the characters in Storm are pitch-perfect. The teens sound like high school kids, and the boys especially are just as crude as real boys. The author's skill with dialogue is one of many reasons this book was so absorbing.

I mentioned in my review of the prequel novella Elemental how the plot was predictable, but it didn't matter because the characters were so good, and I was wondering if the same would be true of a longer work from Kemmerer. A novel needs a more complex plot than a novella, and so Storm, while not entirely unpredictable, was less easy to figure out than Elemental. And even when I was pretty sure I was right about some point or another, Kemmerer kept me second-guessing myself. There weren't really any unexpected twists, but the story was well-done and satisfying.

 

Blow Me Away

I was pretty sure, from having read a couple of shorts from this series (I actually read Breathless first -- my review is here), that I was going to love Storm. I wasn't quite prepared for just how much it would blow me away. The title is appropriate in more ways than one: there are literal storms and metaphorical storms (both emotional and social), but more than that, reading it felt like being swept away by a whirlwind.

I read Storm in two sittings and it would have been in one if I could have kept my eyes open any longer the night I started it. As it was, I sat down for breakfast the next morning intending to read a chapter or two over coffee and ended up neglecting the day's work in order to finish the book.

There are a couple of content issues for some parents and sensitive readers: there is no on-screen sex, but the characters do mention sex a lot, and there are one or two implied, off-screen liaisons, as well as one off-screen and one on-screen near rape. There's also a lot of swearing (listen in on some high school kids without parents around for a few minutes and you'll get an idea of how much), and some pretty heavy violence (mostly fistfights, but there are a couple scenes with guns).

If you can handle that kind of content, then I recommend this book highly. Brigid Kemmerer is on my favorite authors list for sure.



Disclosure: A review copy was purchased by the reviewer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.