Book Review: Basatai: Outside In by Suzan Battah

Basatai: Outside In

By Suzan Battah

Release Date: April 14

Source: Author

Summary: Seventeen year old, Armani Radnelaq a full blooded BaSatai is plagued by a curse in her blood. A curse created from hate and designed to break the divide between two parallel worlds of Earth and H-trae when Armani's blood is spilled in attack and she dies.

S'teuqoubs have been travelling back and forth across the divide for centuries without trouble. The BaSatai and Guardians monitoring activity and enforcing rules to ensure peace and harmony but if the divide splits and opens, a much greater number of supernatural S’teuqoubs will filter into earth destroying equilibrium which the BaSatai and Guardians will be unable to control. Humanity and the BaSatai will suffer and perish. The parallel divide must remain secure at all costs.

Armani has remained hidden on earth with her adopted father Elijah since her birth. She has been raised in the human way and fights her natural instinct to evolve into a BaSatai. The BaSatai in her requires her to evolve and shift, use her powers and strength. Yet Armani is freaked out by the need to shift. She smokes, has a bad attitude, must deal with aggressive bullies and control her natural BaSatai instinct. Her Guardian with BaSatai Warriors are coming for her. She refuses to accept her fate and doesn't believe any BaSatai should die to protect her.

The blood curse maturing in her veins makes her a target for her enemies. Her Guardian Karhl and an elite BasSatai Warrior Rafael are the first to arrive and prepare her for her crossing over. Her attraction to Rafael complicates her purpose to stay on earth even more. They both insist she fall into line and follow their lead but she is not ready to leave earth just yet...

Review: I tried to like this book. I really really tried. I think if I were reading this at any other time, I would have been able to finish it, but since I haven't had that much time to read lately, every book I spend my time on has to be worth spending the time reading. And this one just wasn't.

I always need to like the main character, but I wasn't that big of a fan of Armani. She was constantly complaining about how she didn't need help and her attitude just got kind of annoying. And when Rafe came into the picture, I didn't get their instant chemistry at all. Apparently they were soul mates and sparks flew when they were near each other, even when they just met. I really don't like it when people magically are in love before they even talk, so that aspect of this story really bothered me.

The whole world they live in was also confusing. I thought it took too much effort to really understand what was going on, so I stopped after 50 pages. It took me three days to read those 50 pages because I just couldn't get into it, so I decided to put it down because I wasn't enjoying it as much as I wanted to. This book held a lot of potential with an interesting storyline, it just wasn't fun or interesting enough to read.