Son of War, Daughter of Chaos

 Janette Rallison is one of my favorite YA authors, so I was excited to dive into her latest, Son of War, Daughter of Chaos, a contemporary YA paranormal where the main character, Aislynn, is torn between the boy she's started to love and loyalty to her family. And while I enjoyed reading this book, it didn't quite live up to the high standards Rallison has set with her other books.

Aislynn has spent most of her life in hiding, moving from one location to another, with stints at the Arctic and Antarctic poles in between. All her life, Aislynn has been warned about her family's enemies, particularly those whose eyes glow green. Aislynn dismisses this as part of her father's general weird paranoias--until she meets a boy, Dane, who fits that description. Unfortunately, by the time she discovers this, she's been dating Dane for a couple of weeks and she really likes him.

As Aislynn and her family are forced into hiding one more time, Aislynn learns the real truth: that her family are Setites, named for the ancient Egyptian god Set, and the enemies are Horusians. But the more Aislynn learns about the long war-fare between the two groups and her family's role in this history, the more complicated her feelings get. Which group is right? As the book progresses, Aislynn has to battle with her mind and her heart to choose a path that's right for her.

Not that the book isn't well written or the characters engaging--it has that. Aislynn is a smart, conscientious teenage girl who's trying to figure out what the right thing is, even when her family and friends are telling her differently.

I suppose for me this just didn't quite have the spark of so many of Rallison's books. I think Rallison is at her best showing contemporary teens interact with each other (even in the CJ Hill books), so when a lot of this plot revolves around high-paced stakes, I lost some of the fun teen interaction and voice.