Swear by Nina Malkin

It’s been six months since everything happened, six months since Sinclair Youngblood Powers disappeared. Dice misses Sin more than anything, but she’s afraid that he might actually be gone forever—from existence. Still, she tries to have a normal life, playing music with her friends and trying to connect with new ones, especially Tosh, her attractive new band made. But just when everything seems back to the plain and ordinary, strange things start happening again. Little snatches of melody, plants that seem to come alive, weird weather, and the disappearance of her best friend’s boyfriend all point in one direction for Dice: to Sin. He’s back. Dice is sure of it, but she’s also sure that I can only mean trouble.

Reading Swoon by Nina Malkin a couple years ago was an interesting experience for me, to say the least, and I can’t tell you what made me pick up its sequel, Swear. I guess I was just curious to see where Malkin would take the story. What readers get in Swear is a lot more bizarre than everything that happens in Swoon. The plot just kept getting weirder and weirder and continuously made me wonder what the point was. Additionally, I’ve always felt a little distanced from Dice’s story because of Malkin’s writing. I’ve come to realize that I really don’t like her writing all that much; in Swear, the descriptions were sometimes a little vulgar, the humor was forced for me as the reader, and there seemed to be an overemphasis on the extremes of teen behavior, such as doing drugs and holding séances. Despite all of the problems that I had with this book, I still found the story incredibly sexy. The one thing that Malkin does very well is develop Dice’s relationship with Sin, and I did enjoy reading along as they worked out their personal issues. Overall, reading Swear was perhaps not the best investment of my time, but, as I said before, it was certainly an interesting experience.

Fans of Swoon by Nina Malkin will likely want to pick up its sequel, Swear, as will readers who also enjoyed Ruined by Paula Morris and Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready.

Rating: 3.25

Review copy from Simon & Schuster Galley Grab