Rachel Vincent: My Soul to Keep

• ISBN-13: 9780373210053
• Publisher: Harlequin
• Publication date: 6/1/2010
• Pages: 304

 Kaylee has an addiction: her very hot, very popular boyfriend, Nash. A banshee like Kaylee, Nash understands her like no one else. Nothing can come between them.
 Until something does.
 Demon breath. No, not the toothpaste-challenged kind. The Netherworld kind. The kind that really can kill you. Somehow the super-addictive substance has made its way to the human world. But how? Kaylee and Nash have to cut off the source and protect their friends - one of whom is already hooked.
 And so is someone else...

 NAAAAAASH - she screamed in fury.
 Oh, Rachel, you crazy, sadistic wench. Why must you do this to my emotions on a fairly regular basis? My little fangirl heart can't handle the strain. Although the promise of things to come does somewhat alleviate the pain....
 As I'm sure you've already figured out, Nash and our heroine Kaylee are on the rocks, but why? That is the important question. And not even the most important question. Vincent does a wonderful job in this novel of effectively reproducing the virtually unbounded stupidity of teenagers. Especially rich bitch teenagers. So effective, in fact, that I spend the majority of the novel head-desking hard enough to knock books askew.
 Kaylee and her cousin Sophie are still at odds, mostly because Sophie's a raging bitch-head but also because she sort of blames Kaylee for her mother's death. Emma is dating some moronic jock (so is Sophie, but can we really expect any less? Or more?) who is hell bent on snuffing some new drug, street name "Frost." Real name, Demon's Breath, the highly addictive carbon dioxide exhalation of a hellion from the Netherworld. Sounds fun, right? Getting all jumped up on someone else's bad breath, yum.
 But actually, no, it's highly destructive to the human body and mind, and withdrawal is the mother of all psyche-breakers. Doug and his friends apparently didn't get the memo, and now Kaylee and Nash are out to save all their sorry, thrill-seeking butts. Kaylee, for once, is playing the safe card, wanting to take the whole situation to the adults to handle, but Nash is, for some reason, holding her back, supposedly to protect his dumbass friends. I smell something rotten in the state of Denmark, methinks.
 Also, for some strange reason, Kaylee is unable to sleep because she soul-screams herself right into the Netherworld. Yes, you heard that right. While having nightmares of a death, she screams herself straight out of the real world and into the next, a talent that only the female bean sidhe possesses. Which means she's also going to have to get herself out. After one experience of this, she needs constant watching while she sleeps, to have someone there are to wake her should she start screaming. Fascinating, awkward, and hard to deal with, while also reflecting my actual life at the time of reading. It's the perfect storm of awesomeness.
There isn't too much character development in this installment, unless you count that punch Tod threw at Nash's head, in which case I think we have a deep insight into his character. Save that for later. Ruminate on it, savor it. Think back on it later. Other than that...everyone is pretty static. Other than Nash, of course, and I'm not even going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole for fear of spoilers. Honestly, though, that's about as close as I can even get to the matter without giving the whole thing away, willy nilly.
 Overall: B+
 I was genuinely annoyed with the moronic actions of nearly everyone in the novel, but since they're teenagers, this is, then, a highly accurate depiction. Vincent catches some slack from that. Other than that, I feel like My Soul to Sleep only created more questions rather than solving any of them. We didn't get to see much bean sidhe action, and that was disappointing. Nonetheless, it was still a fun ride.