Review: Bound (Arelia LaRue #1) by Kira Saito

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Title: Bound (Arelia LaRue #1)
Author: Kira Saito
Started: 15/1/12
Finished: 22/1/12
Medium: eBook from Author
Genre: Young Adult: Paranormal Romance
Buy: Smashwords / Amazon

Goodreads Synopsis:

Sixteen year old Arelia LaRue lives in New Orleans where the music is loud, voodoo queens inhabit every street corner, and the ghosts are alive and well. Despite her surroundings, all she wants is to help her Grand-mere Bea pay the rent and save up for college.

When her best friend Sabrina convinces her to take a well-paying summer job at the infamous Darkwood plantation, owned by the wealthy LaPlante family, Arelia agrees.

However, at Darkwood strange things start to happen, and gorgeous Lucus LaPlante insists that he needs her help. Soon, the powers that Arelia has been denying all her life, come out to play and she discovers mysteries about herself that she could have never imagined.

I was once looking around Bound's Goodreads pages and found a lot of mixed reviews about this book. What I found on Goodreads made me want to read and decide for myself and well I did! The good reviews I agree with the bad ones not so much. I don't really get why they didn't like it at all. 

This is something new for me, especially in the Young Adult Genre, I've only read about voodoo in a non-ya book just that one time last year but never read a book solely based on a protagonist who's gifted with the powers of voodoo. 

I didn't know why, but I really connected with Arelia. I don't know if its her courage, wittiness or her will to stay away from people (especially hot boys who are off-limits) or the fact that she's bestfriends with a snob. Okay, fine! I admit, I couldn't stand Sabrina (Arelia's Bestfriend). It amuses me to actually find such a character like her in a book. She made me laugh a few times at how badly conceited she is. I know a lot of people hate this book for her especially. But for me, I found it amusing. You've gotta love these type of people. Haha. I blame my endless patience for this point. The plot had its predictable bits but aside from that it was flowing, not too complex and all together good. 

Overall, Bound was an excellent read about a different aspect of paranormalcy with unique intriguing characters, a wonderful plot and juicy man-candy. Gimme more now! :D