Book Review: Vigilante Nights by Erin Richards



Title: Vigilante Nights
By: Erin Richards
Publisher: Merit Press 
Publication Date: June 18, 2013
ISBN: 9781440562358
Pages: 303

A "good boy" will do anything for vengeance when a gang rite kills his twin sister. Will Lucas win, or follow his sister Silver into the darkness?
After a hideous car wreck, Lucas wakes from a coma to find that his world is gutted. Not only is his beloved twin sister, Silver, gone forever, but Lucas is broken in body and spirit. He will never be a college athlete, and is robbed of what he now realizes was the most important bond of his life. Although they weren't identical twins, Lucas and Silver shared a bond so fierce it defied reason, and was nearly supernatural.
After her death, that bond seems to endure when Lucas sees Silver everywhere he turns. Either he's crazy, or Silver is trying to tell him something about the California gang initiation they stumbled into that cost Silver her life. Lucas is bent on revenge, turning on Raymond, Silver's former boyfriend; the one Lucas never wanted her to date. He forms a posse of vigilantes to take out the gangsters responsible for Silver's death, but he risks not only his own life, but the love of the new girl on his block, who knows more about Lucas and Silver than can be accounted for by mere chance.

MY REVIEW
I can say this was a book with an action-packed storyline. The characters are easy to connect with. I would not read it again or a follow-up to it…if there was one. You get a mixed review from me. I didn't hate it…I didn't love it. Essentially, I can only say I read a lot of young adult books but this just didn't connect with me at all. I am not the target audience so that's not a problem.

I have read this book and I can tell you that I do not normally look at other people's reviews of books until after I have already written mine…but this time I did read them before writing mine. I read other reviews because there is some disturbing racial aspects of this book which I was not sure If I was being unfair to the author for allowing to disturb me. There are racial inequalities in day-to-day life, I am aware of that, but it did seem blatant and largely unaddressed. It is addressed as okay because of what happened to Lucas's sister… but hating a whole race of people because of one group of people in young adult story was disturbing to me.

The second reason I read other's review was to specifically look for a teenagers outlook since one of my pet peeves is not successfully following through with a character's use of language and slang. For example: the normal teenage mutilation of the English language. And this bothered me as it appeared that Lucas (Main Character) thinks like a very romantic woman but talks with outdated and off kilter teenage slang. Ironically most of the teenage reviews I found actually addressed the racism and language/ slang issues which I was shocked to find both things that disturbed me with this story and reassured me I am not just too old to read young adult books.

This is a good story but it really just wasn't for me so I can't recommend it personally… but If you or your teen like action-packed, suspense with twists and turns this might be the very book for you.
Disclosure: All opinions are my own. I received Vigilante Nights In at no cost for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was received

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