Title: Nocturne
Author: Christine Johnson (site)
Published: August 23rd, 2011 by Simon Pulse
Pages: 368
Buy: Amazon / Book Depository
Rating: 2/5
Synopsis:Some secrets are too dangerous...
After the tragic events of the summer, Claire is looking forward to a new school year. All she wants to worry about is finding the most gorgeous dress to wear to the Autumn Ball with her perfect boyfriend.
But as Claire knows all too well, the life of a werewolf is never that simple, or that sweet.
When Claire’s human and wolf lives start to collide, her worst nightmares come true. She is hurting her best friend. She has been caught lying. And then the unthinkable happens: Someone discovers Claire’s secret.
If Claire’s werewolf identity is exposed, everyone she knows will be put at risk. And the pack’s response comes at a cost higher than Claire can imagine. Claire will be forced to determine just how far she is willing to(Goodreads)
Review: I liked Nocturne quite a bit more than I liked Claire de Lune. For some reason, the first book just fell flat for me. Nocturne had a much faster pace. Claire annoyed me fairly frequently. She seemed to miss some very obvious plot twists, instead assuming the worst and causing huge problems. I don't think she's a very intelligent character, which makes her a bit of a pain to read. For instance, there are tons of good reasons to give your friends for not being able to hang out. Why not just say that she's grounded until the ceremony? Her mother would have backed her up. She should have come up with one big reason that covered the entire time that she was going to be busy with pack stuff instead of coming up with flimsy last-minute excuses every day. The major climax of the novel was very excited and I found myself completely sucked in. I stayed up all night to finish it, in fact. However, it was more because I had to know how long it was going to take her to realize that she was being a complete idiot than because I wanted to see if she'd be able to follow through with it. Seriously; you don't even confirm it? I knew pretty early on what Amy was assuming and I couldn't believe Claire's reaction when Amy finally confronted her. I really wanted to throttle her. Things got pretty rocky with Matthew, which added some drama to the story. He started being a complete jerk and I was looking forward to her moving on to someone with a bit more personality. Alas, she decided to just forgive and forget everything after a half-a** apology from him that was really more of him shifting the blame to her. This made me pretty angry. He's obviously not okay with what she is, so he needs to go! There had better be a new love interest in the next book. A boy who somehow managed to survive his mother's transformations? A boy who is the product of secret government testing on werewolves? This series could really use a character who is a bit less goody-goody. Looking over my review, I'm thinking that I didn't really like this one all that much. It became impossible to put down for a while there, but it still left me feeling frustrated. I still liked it much better than the first, though. I would suggest that older readers (older than 12) give this series a miss, the characters lacked depth and felt Middle Grade.
