The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong

                                                             🌟🌟 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟



Synopsis:

Strange things are happening in Maya's tiny Vancouver Island town. First, her friend Serena, the captain of the swim team, drowns mysteriously in the middle of a calm lake. Then, one year later, mountain lions are spotted rather frequently around Maya's home—and her reactions to them are somewhat . . . unexpected. Her best friend, Daniel, has also been experiencing unexplainable premonitions about certain people and situations.
It doesn't help that the new bad boy in town, Rafe, has a dangerous secret, and he's interested in one special part of Maya's anatomy—her paw-print birthmark.

I thought that the title of this book was eluding to a gathering of supernatural creatures but apparently that is not the case.  I don't see what the title has to do with the story. There was no gathering in the book. I thought that the synopsis of the book was interesting but some of the things that are mentioned in it are not exactly accurate. Daniel gets feelings about people but I wouldn't call it premonitions and Maya doesn't have bad reactions to the mountain lions around her home. In the book, it is explained that wildlife is seen around her home frequently enough that it is not a huge deal.

I feel like this book had a lot of build up that went nowhere. There were things that happened in the book that were never explained and I felt like the author included events just to include them. They didn't really matter to the story. Supernatural ideals were excepted way too easily...I don't understand how a person can just immediately begin believing that they are a part of a legend that was told to them.

We never meet these supposed scientists and are never told why they keep such a tight leash on the residents of the town. Also, we are never given a definitive answer as to what made Serena drown in the beginning of the book. There are a bunch of ideas or suggestions that are thrown out and people just accept whichever one they prefer.

I didn't like many of the characters. I found many of them annoying and with Sam I felt that the author was trying too hard to establish her as tough and then makes her vulnerable which doesn't make any sense.