Review of Dangerous (Element Preservers #1)

Dangerous

Synopsis - from goodreads

Ria is an 18-year-old girl who has just started going to the University of Magic, a special university for those who have one of the four elements: fire, water, air and earth. There she meets Michael, a boy whose element is different from hers, which makes their romantic involvement seem impossible because mixing of elements can have horrible consequences.

She also feels threatened by Adrian, a very dangerous magic disease carrier. Magic disease, which surged as a result of bad mixing of elements, turns people into cold-hearted killers, who have a strong desire to take someone's element as they do not have their own.

Ria's best friend, Paula, is fascinated by Adrian like most of the girls at the University and wants him to help her with her research about the disease.

All Ria's beliefs are put to test when she starts having the symptoms of the disease and the only person she can turn to is Adrian.

Review

I had a very bizarre experience reading this book because there is so much that i didn't like but strangely i still really enjoyed the book overall. Dangerous certainly isn’t perfect. There are quite a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes, not to mention the problems I had with the characters, but for some reason I still liked it.

One of my biggest problems with this book was the main character. She wasn’t particularly well developed and it almost seemed like she was two different people as her personality was all over the place. Half the time she seemed thoughtful, kind-hearted and caring whilst at other times she was the exact opposite; shallow, spoiled, mean and quite frankly a bitch. I think if these different aspects of her personality had been blended better she may have come across as a deep multi-faceted character, instead I just found her unbelievable.

I also truly hated Adrian for a significant part of the book; he comes across as the bad guy for a lot of the book. Not even just misunderstood but truly horrible. He does slightly redeem himself later in the book but he isn’t much of a hero. Michael however I did like. He comes across as the perfect romantic interest, he seems like a nice guy and he gives Ria a chance to show some of the more likeable parts of her personality; the girl who is willing to put aside her prejudices for someone she cares about. This book also contains one of my pet peeves, something that usually makes me hate a book.

The best part of this book was probably the premise and the world it is set in; a world almost exactly the same as the one we live in only everyone has elemental magic. I also found the magic disease aspect of the book interesting. The storyline holds incredible potential, there was great action and I loved lots of what happened.

Despite all its many issues this book has something very special. On finishing this, despite having other books I should read and zero money, I went straight onto amazon and bought the second book. I also bought and read the third right after finishing the second. This series has me hooked! The later books do improve where the characters are concerned and by the third Ria seems well developed and I really like Adrian. I would say this series is definitely worth reading; each book gets better and better and I can’t wait for the fourth!