Author: Devyn Dawson

Publisher: Devyn Dawson

Release date: March 20, 2012

Rating: 2 stars – IT WAS OKAY.

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Synopsis

Jessie’s moved from New York to North Carolina one week after school lets out for summer break. Being a teen in a retirement area, is one more thing to add to her ‘this sucks’ list. It’s bad enough to have to move, but even worse her alcoholic father left them as he went on a quest to be an artist in Greece.

Things begin to look up when she is reintroduced to Caleb, the dorky boy that saved her life one summer at the beach. Caleb is no longer scrawny and nerdy, he is now tall, dark and handsome. Caleb is a Light Tamer. Now, Jessie and Caleb must learn how to control the light…before they lose each other forever.

Jessie and Amber become fast friends. Amber is a no frills girl, her snarky comments and sassy attitude will raise a few eyebrows and have you laughing out loud. Amber is rough around the edges, a light tamer with only two years left to find the one she is bound to. Her father’s surfing accident left her dad paralyzed and her brother dead.

This paranormal romance will keep you on the edge of your seat with humor, romance, and determination. Fall head over heels for Caleb and Jessie. — Goodreads

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. SPOILERS MAY BE AHEAD.

I wanted to read this book because of it’s sequel, Enlightened. It has a beautiful cover that automatically garnered the attention of the YA lover in me. But of course, I couldn’t read the sequel without reading the first novel to begin with. And that my folks, was my mistake. I didn’t take the time to read the synopsis or read reviews (not that I read too much into them in the first place; everyone has their own opinions). I was excited to read this book because I saw that it had 4 star ratings and beyond. Plus, it was an Indie book and I’ve been trying to expand my horizons.

But I was terribly disappointed with Devyn Dawson’s The Light Tamer. There is a major tense issue. That’s the first thing that threw me off. It’s written terribly in that way which a reader can’t dissect which tense the author is using. I mentally had to correct sentences on every page because it wasn’t written grammatically correct. After the third chapter I gave up all together because a) it’s not my job to edit this book and b) it took away from my enjoyment of it. I honestly wish that it would have been proofread thoroughly before it being published. I think that it would have made a world of difference.

Second thing that bothered me was the entire execution of the plot. So you have a fifteen-year-old teenage girl named, Jessie, who just moved to New Bern, North Carolina. Upon her first day she meets Caleb. A few days after, Caleb and her go on a date where he, not so subtly, tells Jessie that she is a supernatural creature – a light tamer. What does she do? Believes him. She doesn’t question it for a fraction of a moment. First of all, what kind of person believes a stranger at face value? If it were me I would have run away from him and thought he was crazy. That’s what any normal girl would do, right?

Also, I would like to mention that the discovery of her being a light tamer happened in the SECOND chapter. It’s very fast-paced. Which brings me to my other reason why it wasn’t that great of a book: It’s very underdeveloped.

Along with the whole discovery of Jessie being a light tamer was her romance with Caleb. It happened in 2.o seconds. When he tells her that she’s a light tamer, just like him, he also throws the curve ball that she’s BONDED TO HIM. Yep. That’s right. He wants to touch her and be around her every second of every day. Add that to the fact that he can read her every thought, and you have a teenage boy with an Edward Cullen complex, minus the whole mentally abusive aspect.

It sounds horrible, what I’m saying, but in my opinion it was not written well. It was under-developed in many ways. The romance being one of them. But there had to be something that kept me reading till the end, right? Why else would I have finished?

The book did have some redeeming qualities about it. First thing was the world that Devyn created. I’ve never read or come across anything that resembled a light tamer. They are humans who have the ability to heal and need the strength from the light to feel safe, warm, and connected. There are also dark ones who were previous light tamers but were converted to the dark side when they lost the protection of their family or their bond mate. Her concepts were original and I’ll give Ms. Dawson brownie points for that. Her writing also had a strong voice, which made the book nothing short of dull.

There are many people who loved this book, but unfortunately it was not my cup of tea. It sucks because I really wanted to read the sequel and now I have lost interest because of how badly the book was written. Like I said, if the book was thoroughly proofread and developed more as a whole then it would have been an amazing start to a series.