Brightest Kind of Darkness

Publisher: Patrice Michelle

Publish Date: June 27, 2011

Version: e-book from author

Series: Brightest Kind of Darkness

Nara Collins is an average sixteen-year-old, with one exception: every night she dreams the events of the following day. Due to an incident in her past, Nara avoids using her special gift to change fate…until she dreams a future she can’t ignore.

After Nara prevents a bombing at Blue Ridge High, her ability to see the future starts to fade, while people at school are suddenly being injured at an unusually high rate.

Grappling with her diminishing powers and the need to prevent another disaster, Nara meets Ethan Harris, a mysterious loner who seems to understand her better than anyone. Ethan and Nara forge an irresistible connection, but as their relationship heats up, so do her questions about his dark past.

Inara "Nara" Collins is different than most kids her age.  She has dreams that show her what happens the following day.  This helps her in many aspects of high school.  She knows when there is going to be an embarrassing moment and how to avoid it.  She is the star goalie for her soccer team because she already knows which way they are going to kick the ball.  She knows the interactions she is going to have between her and her best-friend, Lainey O'Neil.  This is monotonous and boring to her, and she wishes for a "surprising day" where she doesn't know what happens.

Then she meets Ethan Harris.  He is the strange new kid at her school.  He doesn't interact with any of the students.  The only interaction Nara has had with Ethan was during the hall when she almost ran into him.  This changed the day she decided to interfere with what she saw in her dreams.  She dreamed that there would be a bomb at the school.  She alerted the school about the bomb and school was closed.  Ethan actually talked to Nara while they were standing in the parking lot.

Strange things start happening in Nara's life.  She loses her dreams; students at the school are getting hurt; Nara sees things that are odd; Nara's father contacts her after walking out of her life when she was little; her relationship with Ethan intensifies... It is up to Nara to figure out what is happening and how Ethan plays into that.

 

I LOVED this book!  From the very start of the book when Nara made the 911 call about the bombing at the school to the very end, I was drawn into the story.  The last ⅓ of the book was a nail-biter.  I couldn't put the book down.  This book caused me to make up a new category, I'm not sure about.  This book made it really hard to pen my likes/did not like because I didn't want to spoil things and tell people WHY I liked/did not like them.

•Nara.  I love Nara.  She has these dreams and when she sees something catastrophic, she interferes with it.  She is strong-willed.  The passion that she has is admirable.

•Lainey.  Nara's best friend.  She gets caught up in the whole high school experience and this causes her and Nara's friendship to drift apart.  Even still, she is a good person.

•Ethan.  Everyone has their opinion of him in this book.  Ethan's character is not fully revealed until later in the book.  I'm not going to spoil it for you, just know I like him.

•Nara's mother.  She is distant from Nara ever since her father walked out.  It's obvious that she cares for Nara, she just doesn't know how to show it.

• I love the interaction between all the characters in the book and how it was a real "high school" experience.

 •Miranda, Sophia, Jared and other various high school students.  They act their age or younger.  It is not very attractive.

•Other characters in the book.  They are not meant to be liked.  I won't tell who they are because I don't want to spoil it for you.

•Coach of the soccer team.  The coach is easily swayed by members of the team.

 

•Nara's father.  You don't really get a sense of him in the book.  The only thing that you really know is that he walked out on Nara and her mom when she was five.  There are a few other details, but I’ll let you read the book to discover them.  Even still, I’m not sure whether I like him or not.  I'm sure he'll be more of a presence in the next book and I'll have a better opinion of him then.

I think the cover is beautiful.  Nara looks like how she is described in the book.   I don't know where the red dress fits in with the story, but that is insignificant.  I love the fall colors on the cover.  The fact that Nara is in the woods goes along with a few points in the story.