Cracked by Eliza Crewe - Book Review

Cracked by Eliza Crewe Series: Soul Eater #1 Published by: Strange Chemistry Pages: 327 Format: Paperback Genre: Paranormal, Fantasy Source: Purchased Rating: 3/5
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FROM GOODREADS:  Meet Meda. She eats people.
Well, technically, she eats their soul. But she totally promises to only go for people who deserve it. She's special. It's not her fault she enjoys it. She can't help being a bad guy. Besides, what else can she do? Her mother was killed and it's not like there are any other "soul-eaters" around to show her how to be different. That is, until three men in suits show up.
They can do what she can do. They're like her. Meda might finally have a chance to figure out what she is. The problem? They kind of want to kill her. Before they get the chance Meda is rescued by crusaders, members of an elite group dedicated to wiping out Meda's kind. This is her chance! Play along with the "good guys" and she'll finally figure out what, exactly, her 'kind' is.
Be careful what you wish for. Playing capture the flag with her mortal enemies, babysitting a teenage boy with a hero complex, and trying to keep one step ahead of a too-clever girl are bad enough. But the Hunger is gaining on her.
The more she learns, the worse it gets. And when Meda uncovers a shocking secret about her mother, her past, and her destiny... she may finally give into it.

MY THOUGHTS:
I bought Cracked as a Christmas present to myself, and I ended up seeing a few reviews before I was able to open my copy, which were less than stellar. I wasn't too sure what to expect, but I was somewhat pleasantly surprised with what I read. Cracked started out with a bang! The action in the first few pages grabbed my attention from the very start. Plus, it started out with an extremely gory scene in an asylum. I love creepy, gory stuff and especially anything happening in an asylum!! I'm not sure what that says about me, but I just eat that stuff up like chocolate cake! The action continues throughout the rest of the novel, which made it hard to put down. Basically any and every thing that can go wrong does for Meda, but I think it ultimately started making the plot a little hard to keep up with. I felt the author kept throwing things out of left field that didn't necessarily need to happen, and it really annoyed me when Meda wasn't a part of those things herself. Other characters in the book would take off to do something majorly related to the story, and she would sit on the sidelines, just waiting and it bored me to tears! The author would take opportunities like these to throw in the fact that Meda can also see ghosts, which I thought was kind of weird and didn't really have much of a purpose in the story. I didn't really think it needed to be in it at all, but maybe that will be a bigger element in the story line of the next book. Who knows?
The reading style was really easy to get sucked into. Mainly because I really like reading from a snarky POV, and Meda is quite the snarky girl. I loved Meda. She was just a bad-a**, who could take care of herself without getting sidetracked by a boy! The fact that she didn't have a love interest just made this book even better for me, because I can't really name that many books off the top of my head where a girl protagonist isn't distracted by some boy, or god forbid, two!! It was a breath of fresh air. I'm not saying there isn't a little romance in this book, though. It just doesn't involve our main character.
The secondary characters are just as easily lovable, and I quickly became attached to them and their personalities. One major thing I can compliment Eliza Crewe on was her deep characters. They each had faults, and endearing personality traits as well.
Overall, I liked this book, but I didn't fall in love with it. I think I will pick up the second book when it comes out, and I hope it's a bit more organized than Cracked seemed to be. I rated Cracked 3 out of 4 stars, because even though I was attached to the characters, I felt there was a lot of things that didn't need to happen in the story, and there's one major thing that I can't talk about without spoiling that really upset me to no end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My hopes for another Jennifer Armentrout like book simply fell flat when it came to Cracked, unfortunately.