Claire de Lune by Christine Johnson

Title: Claire de Lune

Author: Christine Johnson

Genre: Paranormal romance

Details: Hardcover, 336 pages

"Torn between two destinies?

Claire is having the perfect sixteenth birthday. Her pool party is a big success, and gorgeous Matthew keeps chatting and flirting with her as if she's the only girl there. But that night, she discovers something that takes away all sense of normalcy: she's a werewolf.

As Claire is initiated into the pack of female werewolves, she must deal not only with her changing identity, but also with a rogue werewolf who is putting everyone she knows in danger. Claire's new life threatens her blossoming romance with Matthew, whose father is leading the werewolf hunt. Now burdened with a dark secret and pushing the boundaries of forbidden love, Claire is struggling to feel comfortable in either skin. With her lupine loyalty at odds with her human heart, she will make a choice that will change her forever?."

- Summary from Goodreads

When I read the inside flap of this book, to be honest, it sounded like a typical young adult paranormal romance story. The girl has a secret of being a werewolf and she can't tell anyone, even her adorable boyfriend Matthew. The beginning was all right, maybe around 4 Beasts. The typical boy/girl romance starts, and I was in awe by how Christine Johnson added a bit of mystery at the beginning of each chapter to lure me further into the book. Each chapter started with a snippet of the antagonist’s point of view, a view of a dangerous and deadly werewolf that was the talk and shock of the town. It made me wonder, who was the villan?

But after Claire learns about being a werewolf, everything went downhill. Her mom had to go into this whole session about explaining the "true" life of werewolves that went on for pages and pages. The lives of the creatures had so many specific and strict rules, techniques and traits that just rambled on. The explanation pages just got more annoying and boring as they went on, but I wont go into detail because some of them may ruin the book. However, I feel it necessary to point out one odd thing: the ritual of the "Greeting". Heres some snippets from the book:

"Victoria, I greet you."

"Marie, I greet you. Claire, I greet you, too."

"I-I greet you,"

"This is Zahlia. Zahlia, I greet you."

"And I greet you, Marie. Claire, I also greet you."

"I greet you, Zahlia."

I don't mean to be frustrated, but, I was not amused or fascinated by many of the habits of the werewolves that were meant to be fascinating. And because of all the secretiveness of being one, Claire had to lie and make up excuses for people in her social life. LOTS of excuses. Too many, if i say. She acted like an inconsiderate middle school girl, showing her emotions that she was obviously hiding a secret instead of at least trying to be normal and responsible by covering it up. It was clear to me that she wasn't even trying to make an effort to cover up her secret. The excuses got overboard and obnoxiously obvious, yet somehow people still believed her.

The only thing that kept me motivated to read was the strange werewolf character in the beginning of each chapter. But, not even halfway into the book my motivation left me because the character was completely predictable. Nothing sparked my interest in this book. The main character was bland, the villan was obvious, and the relationships between all the characters were dull and fake. Overall a below average read that I would suggest not wasting your time on.

2.5 Beasts