Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Simon Pulse (2009), Edition: 1St Edition, 288 pages
Description
New York City breakdancer Nicole loves fellow dancer Zin, who keeps her at a distance, harboring a very old secret.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Jenson_AKA_DL
Nicole's family teeters on the edge of destruction from her brother's addiction. The only solace she has found is in the club, Evermore, where she can forget everything with break dancing and by being with Zin, a beautiful bartender and consummate dancer whose unknown secrets could threaten
This was a very promising story which taps into a mythology that I have seen used in the past, but never in a young adult novel. The book had its ups and downs for me. Although I felt the premise was very interesting and the characters well developed there were parts where the writing itself seemed a little clunky and jarring. However, the main thing that bugged me was the ending which seemed rushed and unemotional compared to the rest of the story. I found the dancing portions of the story held my attention and despite having no idea what most of the dance moves being talked about were, I still found them to be engaging.
Overall I liked the story although I'm glad it is one that I took out from the library as opposed to being one I made an investment in.
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Nicole's very soul.This was a very promising story which taps into a mythology that I have seen used in the past, but never in a young adult novel. The book had its ups and downs for me. Although I felt the premise was very interesting and the characters well developed there were parts where the writing itself seemed a little clunky and jarring. However, the main thing that bugged me was the ending which seemed rushed and unemotional compared to the rest of the story. I found the dancing portions of the story held my attention and despite having no idea what most of the dance moves being talked about were, I still found them to be engaging.
Overall I liked the story although I'm glad it is one that I took out from the library as opposed to being one I made an investment in.
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LibraryThing member BookWhisperer
Raven was a very original story. I was very impressed by this book. A book of love and hate, and the fine line inbetween. Raven is a young girl that has found her passion in breakdancing. Raven is also without a doubt in love with Zin that is also a member of the 'Toprocks'. Only it seems that Zin
This was may first book by Allison Van Diepen. I am impressed by her writing, and I learned about the art of breakdancing in the process. I enjoyed this book, and its slow moments were kept to the very minimum. I will look into reading more from this author in the future.
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has always kept her at a distance. Raven might discover that there is a reason he distances himself, and that he really is unlike anyone Raven has ever met, and will Raven be able to handle the truth. In the end will love be enough to save him.This was may first book by Allison Van Diepen. I am impressed by her writing, and I learned about the art of breakdancing in the process. I enjoyed this book, and its slow moments were kept to the very minimum. I will look into reading more from this author in the future.
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LibraryThing member Miranda_Paige
This book may seem like a frivolous teen love story but hidden behind that is a greater meaning about the question of life after death and souls and what it really means to live. At least that's what I got out of it. This book came at a time when I was thinking about these things and it helped me
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to find the answer for myself. I feel that if you can get past the frivolous love story to the inner core it is a worth while read. Show Less
LibraryThing member 59Square
I read this book because I caught a teen stealing two other Allison van Diepen books, and I thought I should know what they are about. This one combines breakdancing, urban clubs, drugs and immortality into one book. Nicole's family has a secret which she keeps from most people, including the guys
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in her breakdancing team. She spends a lot of her time at the club Evermore, where she is a waitress and is in love with the bartender, Zin, who is also on her breakdancing team. Imagine her shock when she finds out Zin is immortal, and that the club owner is offering her the same choice. What will she choose? Frankly, I am a little bored with immortals sucking the souls out of people. I felt like the urbanness of this book was way more exciting than the immortal part. There were some parts of this book that were telegraphed way far in advance (like that the club owner was the magician that had turned them all immortal), and I got a little impatient. But all in all, pretty interesting and I can see why this author is so popular. I just can't help feeling like she's riding the coattails a little bit. Show Less
LibraryThing member kperry
Nic is a senior in high school. She lives for hanging out with her friends, dancing with her breaking crew, and spending time with Zin.Zin is the leader of their dance crew. His moves are amazing and just watching him gives her chills. Nic is deeply in love with Zin and nothing is going to change
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that.Dancing allows Nic to escape from her problems. Her family is dysfunctional. Her brother left home and is addicted to Meth. Her parents continue to give him money because they don’t want him living on the streets. They refuse to cut him off and allow him to drag the family on an emotional roller coaster ride.After being attacked on her way home from work late one night, Nic discovers a frightening secret about Zin. Her deep feelings for him are tested. She realizes she doesn’t know people like she thought she did. Can she trust Zin or are his secrets too dangerous for her to stay with him?RAVEN is a gripping story filled with lessons of friendship, love, and family. The only detractor might be the amount of break dancing lingo used throughout the book. For someone without any experience in break dancing, it might get a little overwhelming. Don’t give up though. The story is worth it. The lingo is mostly at the beginning of the story. Show Less
LibraryThing member krau0098
I have to admit I picked this book up at the library because I liked the cover. I was a bit worried about dedicating time to reading it because it kind of sounded like another "Twilight" wanna' be. In many ways that it what it ended up being, although it was different in a lot of ways too. Still, I
Nic, or Raven, works at a bar with a lot of awesome people. For some reason she is drawn to Zin the bartender. Zin and Nic are also on a brake-dance team together. Zin, of course, is incredibly handsome and is an awesome dancer, and seems drawn to Nic in return. When Zin protects Nic from being mugged one night, Nic sees a light move into Zin from the attacker. Now Nic thinks that Zin may not quite be human. She needs to figure out what he is and why he continually rebuffs her, even though he clearly loves her.
This wasn't all that great of a book. If the plotline sounds familiar, well it is. It is your basic awesome guy and girl fall in love, but can't be together because awesome guy is not human. But, awesome guy just sees something special in girl that makes him want to break all the rules and try to have a relationship with her. Except in this case the girl loves to break dance.
The plot wasn't all that engaging. It kind of focused around Nic's brother's drug addiction and then around Nic trying to decide if she wanted to become "other" like Zin. There wasn't really much outside force driving this plot somewhere interesting. The way everything ends up was fairly predictable too. The characters themselves are pretty 2D; I didn't really love any of them. The society of Jiang Shi lacked depth and seemed kind of pieced together; it didn't really fit into the world well and was secluded to this small group.
There were a couple other things that bothered me too. The first was that Nic is in high school and works nights at a bar. It was strange; I really didn't know any high-schoolers that served drinks at a bar...I guess I thought you had to be older to do that. Most of the story takes place in this dance club/bar though. It was just odd. The other is the writing style. Van Diepen mostly writes in very short sentences without much description. It makes the writing style a bit sparse and simplistic; I guess it results in a very easy reading level, but it took something out of the story.
The last thing that bothered me (but others may like) is that a lot of time was spent discussing break-dancing moves. I personally don't know (or care) much about break-dancing/hip-hop. It is just outside of the realm of things I am interested in. So, I honestly found these long scenes of practice and dance battle to be boring. Someone who is really into that might dig that about this book, but not me.
As I write the review, I realize that their really was't much I liked about the story. I got through it, it was a quick read. The story wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great. I honestly don't think I can recommend this as a great read. I suppose if you are looking for filler reading with the whole "we can't be together because you are immortal" premise, you might like this. But, honestly there are so many better young adult books out there. You can check out Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, Book 1), Generation Dead, or Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception. All of these are better books and touch on immortal love.
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thought the story was just okay and I got through it, but didn't find it an especially enjoyable read.Nic, or Raven, works at a bar with a lot of awesome people. For some reason she is drawn to Zin the bartender. Zin and Nic are also on a brake-dance team together. Zin, of course, is incredibly handsome and is an awesome dancer, and seems drawn to Nic in return. When Zin protects Nic from being mugged one night, Nic sees a light move into Zin from the attacker. Now Nic thinks that Zin may not quite be human. She needs to figure out what he is and why he continually rebuffs her, even though he clearly loves her.
This wasn't all that great of a book. If the plotline sounds familiar, well it is. It is your basic awesome guy and girl fall in love, but can't be together because awesome guy is not human. But, awesome guy just sees something special in girl that makes him want to break all the rules and try to have a relationship with her. Except in this case the girl loves to break dance.
The plot wasn't all that engaging. It kind of focused around Nic's brother's drug addiction and then around Nic trying to decide if she wanted to become "other" like Zin. There wasn't really much outside force driving this plot somewhere interesting. The way everything ends up was fairly predictable too. The characters themselves are pretty 2D; I didn't really love any of them. The society of Jiang Shi lacked depth and seemed kind of pieced together; it didn't really fit into the world well and was secluded to this small group.
There were a couple other things that bothered me too. The first was that Nic is in high school and works nights at a bar. It was strange; I really didn't know any high-schoolers that served drinks at a bar...I guess I thought you had to be older to do that. Most of the story takes place in this dance club/bar though. It was just odd. The other is the writing style. Van Diepen mostly writes in very short sentences without much description. It makes the writing style a bit sparse and simplistic; I guess it results in a very easy reading level, but it took something out of the story.
The last thing that bothered me (but others may like) is that a lot of time was spent discussing break-dancing moves. I personally don't know (or care) much about break-dancing/hip-hop. It is just outside of the realm of things I am interested in. So, I honestly found these long scenes of practice and dance battle to be boring. Someone who is really into that might dig that about this book, but not me.
As I write the review, I realize that their really was't much I liked about the story. I got through it, it was a quick read. The story wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great. I honestly don't think I can recommend this as a great read. I suppose if you are looking for filler reading with the whole "we can't be together because you are immortal" premise, you might like this. But, honestly there are so many better young adult books out there. You can check out Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, Book 1), Generation Dead, or Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception. All of these are better books and touch on immortal love.
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LibraryThing member cinnleigh
RAVEN by Allison van Diepen was an interesting story and definitely not what I was expecting. I thought there would be more of a paranormal aspect to the story and while there was, it didn’t seem to play too major of a role. The best way to describe the otherworldly elements in this book is as
Nicole is our raven haired beauty full of mystery and secrets. That’s one thing she shares with the delicious Zin. Secrets consume the both of them, threatening to spill over and control their daily lives. Perhaps for Nicole, they already are. Living with a ghost is never easy, especially when this ghost haunts your dreams and occasionally your day-to-day life. Knowing that somewhere in the world your ghost is alive and hurting is ten times worse.
Having fallen in love with Zin from the moment she laid eyes on him, Nicole has filled her heart with this Arabic break-dancing stud. She even went so far as to join the Toprocks, Zin’s dancing group, to get closer to him. This is where I started to get lost in the story.
Unless you’re a fan of break-dancing and understand the sport, I would imagine that the common reader is going to need a break-dancing dictionary to help them visualize the story. Ms. Van Diepen uses quite a few break-dancing terms that made a majority of the action within the story difficult to understand. I could kind of see what the characters were doing and I certainly understood the adrenaline that the dancing was creating, but having no knowledge of the dance moves and no real explanation of them given, this aspect of the book was hard to follow.
The majority of RAVEN focused on Nicole and Zin as their secrets explode and each is left to pick up the pieces for the other. As their romance blooms, however, life gets in the way and the author does an amazing job of holding that romantic tension in the story. Will Nicole end up with Zin or won’t she? My answer to this question changed about every ten pages and this is the true sign of what great writing Ms. Van Diepen put into this book. Her ability to keep us entranced and addicted to the story was such that even though I couldn’t understand parts of it, I still kept reading, needing to know more.
The paranormal aspect of RAVEN – the aspect that I mentioned was kind of lacking – did play a role in our story; it just didn’t feel like the main focus of the story. Perhaps it is better that it wasn’t the main aspect; we were able to focus on the relationships in the story with the magic tossed in to keep us hooked. The paranormal aspect did allow for a common problem the characters could work around and provided a nice touch of otherness to the book that lent it a perfect edge. Overall I would have to say that the combination of paranormal to not ended up working well and was probably to the story’s advantage. The author gave us a fictional story that could easily translate to real life.
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accessories to make the underlying relationship and character development stand out. It certainly worked because although I might not have read what I expected, I definitely came out of it with a story that has stuck with me.Nicole is our raven haired beauty full of mystery and secrets. That’s one thing she shares with the delicious Zin. Secrets consume the both of them, threatening to spill over and control their daily lives. Perhaps for Nicole, they already are. Living with a ghost is never easy, especially when this ghost haunts your dreams and occasionally your day-to-day life. Knowing that somewhere in the world your ghost is alive and hurting is ten times worse.
Having fallen in love with Zin from the moment she laid eyes on him, Nicole has filled her heart with this Arabic break-dancing stud. She even went so far as to join the Toprocks, Zin’s dancing group, to get closer to him. This is where I started to get lost in the story.
Unless you’re a fan of break-dancing and understand the sport, I would imagine that the common reader is going to need a break-dancing dictionary to help them visualize the story. Ms. Van Diepen uses quite a few break-dancing terms that made a majority of the action within the story difficult to understand. I could kind of see what the characters were doing and I certainly understood the adrenaline that the dancing was creating, but having no knowledge of the dance moves and no real explanation of them given, this aspect of the book was hard to follow.
The majority of RAVEN focused on Nicole and Zin as their secrets explode and each is left to pick up the pieces for the other. As their romance blooms, however, life gets in the way and the author does an amazing job of holding that romantic tension in the story. Will Nicole end up with Zin or won’t she? My answer to this question changed about every ten pages and this is the true sign of what great writing Ms. Van Diepen put into this book. Her ability to keep us entranced and addicted to the story was such that even though I couldn’t understand parts of it, I still kept reading, needing to know more.
The paranormal aspect of RAVEN – the aspect that I mentioned was kind of lacking – did play a role in our story; it just didn’t feel like the main focus of the story. Perhaps it is better that it wasn’t the main aspect; we were able to focus on the relationships in the story with the magic tossed in to keep us hooked. The paranormal aspect did allow for a common problem the characters could work around and provided a nice touch of otherness to the book that lent it a perfect edge. Overall I would have to say that the combination of paranormal to not ended up working well and was probably to the story’s advantage. The author gave us a fictional story that could easily translate to real life.
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LibraryThing member katiedoll
While the aspect and plot of Raven was definitely enjoyable, I didn’t like it nearly as much as I thought I would.
Raven was definitely enthralling. Diepen knows exactly how to draw the reader in and leave them hanging and wanting more. I was constantly curious about the Jiang Shi and their past
I think this probably would‘ve worked better in third person. Nothing seemed to flow for me. For most of the book, the writing felt stiff and choppy, and not nearly emotive enough to be the inside of Nic, the main protagonists, head. I think this is ultimately what turned me off, as well as the hurried ending that came entirely too quickly.
Overall, Raven wasn’t my cup of my tea. But I will recommend it to any paranormal lovers in the mood for something light and easy to read. With a swoon-worthy love story and a new kind of supernatural race, it’s worth checking out!
Raven was definitely enthralling. Diepen knows exactly how to draw the reader in and leave them hanging and wanting more. I was constantly curious about the Jiang Shi and their past
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as well as the eerie characters that seemed to fit right into that world. The story weaves a dark mystery that will keep you on your toes, and despite my overall disinterest in the book, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to get into.I think this probably would‘ve worked better in third person. Nothing seemed to flow for me. For most of the book, the writing felt stiff and choppy, and not nearly emotive enough to be the inside of Nic, the main protagonists, head. I think this is ultimately what turned me off, as well as the hurried ending that came entirely too quickly.
Overall, Raven wasn’t my cup of my tea. But I will recommend it to any paranormal lovers in the mood for something light and easy to read. With a swoon-worthy love story and a new kind of supernatural race, it’s worth checking out!
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LibraryThing member maidenveil
Raven is quite good to be honest. Although I'd rather borrow a copy to read than own one. I didn't felt dragged reading it, but although it was short, it felt like forever for me to grasp the story. There are insights there that are good to note. It talks of friendship, passion, life and death.
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Sometimes living forever is not as lovely as it sounds like, even if you don't need to drink blood, there's always a catch to living forever. Show Less
LibraryThing member LaPhenix
I got a distinct feel of Twilight while reading this, though it ended up going in a different direction. The plot is not bad, though laden with break dancing which I personally don't really enjoy, but the writing style I think could have been improved upon greatly.
LibraryThing member lesleykj84
Everything at home for Nicole is like walking on egg shells. Her parents are for her brother and will do anything for him. But Nicole has had enough. Because her brother is a drug addict, and he will do anything, include using his parents to get drug money.
To get away from it all Nicole starts
I enjoyed the subplot of the dance competition. I felt I was there when they would break dance, the detail was done so well.
And the twist? Wow! It was clever, interesting, and so cool. You think you're in for some typical paranormal story and then you get sucked in to this amazing twist.
Mix in the fact Nicole is dealing with her brother, a new job, break dancing, and her relationship with Zin and something is bound to explode.
The romance between Zin and Nicole for me, felt more like they were best friends than anything more. They care about each other, and would do anything for each other. But I didn't feel the chemistry there with the interactions they had. Maybe because of how hectic everything was going for both of them it was more about keeping one another alive than the chemistry, but I really wanted to feel it. Especially since Nicole said she is madly in love with him.
If you're looking for a creative paranormal, with some real teen issues mixed in this one is for you. It's fun, fresh, and you might learn a thing or two about break dancing while you're at it!
To get away from it all Nicole starts
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working at a club on weekends, to get close to Zin. Zin is her perfection, he's everything she dreams about in a guy. And even though Zin seems like he wants her too, he keeps her at a distance. Until she sees something happen, and Zin is no longer perfect. He's frightening.I enjoyed the subplot of the dance competition. I felt I was there when they would break dance, the detail was done so well.
And the twist? Wow! It was clever, interesting, and so cool. You think you're in for some typical paranormal story and then you get sucked in to this amazing twist.
Mix in the fact Nicole is dealing with her brother, a new job, break dancing, and her relationship with Zin and something is bound to explode.
The romance between Zin and Nicole for me, felt more like they were best friends than anything more. They care about each other, and would do anything for each other. But I didn't feel the chemistry there with the interactions they had. Maybe because of how hectic everything was going for both of them it was more about keeping one another alive than the chemistry, but I really wanted to feel it. Especially since Nicole said she is madly in love with him.
If you're looking for a creative paranormal, with some real teen issues mixed in this one is for you. It's fun, fresh, and you might learn a thing or two about break dancing while you're at it!
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LibraryThing member Ash600
Utterly disappointed, I couldn't finish the book.
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
288 p.; 5.5 inches
ISBN
1416978992 / 9781416978992