The Graces by Laure Eve

genre: ya paranormal

The Graces.  In River's high school, there are three of them.  Perfect.  Beautiful. Comfortable in their own skin. As tight as three peas in a familial pod.  And River wants in.  Making a place for yourself that will stick amongst the Graces is no small feat - but River knows that whatever magic is at the heart of The Graces, she has to have some.

Whatever it takes.

At first, The Graces felt a little too Twilight for me, but that soon went away as the story morphed and darkened.  Our protagonist's yearning, her absolute obsession with this family is sometimes over the top but sometimes totally understandable, as they seem to have everything she doesn't.  She's VERY much a teen, with her absolute hate of fakeness but yet always worrying so much about every single thing she says or does - being in her head was kind of exhausting as she constantly struggles between the girl she IS and the girl she THINKS they WANT her to be - which maybe she is but maybe she not.

The paranormal stuff worked for me, for the most part.  The ending did leave a lot of questions unanswered, which was a little frustrating - the "magic" River is so obsessed with is definitely in a darker vein.  I guessed a few plot twists but some things did surprise me and while I didn't love it or find it completely satisfying, it did entertain me.

NOTE: strong language, teen sexual situations