Raven by Allison Van Diepen

Title: Raven
Author: Allison Van Diepen
Age Group: Teens
# of Pages: 279
My Rating: 3/5

On the dance floor, Nicole will dance to her heart content. Although she is no professional, she still can rock it. But there is someone who rocks her heart more than anything else.

Zin is an Arabic beauty, who's moves will blow your mind. But he has a secret. One that Nicole accidentally discovers. Knowing who he really is, can there be any love between them?

Since there is quite a bit of hip-hop scenes in the novel, the terminology can get a bit confusing to those who are not familiar. Since I watch shows like So You Think You Can Dance? where there are a lot of hip-hop artists, I can get a gist of what the characters are doing. But there were times where I wished the author made a glossary on all of the terms.

For the longest time, the protagonist kept referring to her addicted brother as "a ghost". It bothered me very much because whenever she thought or spoke about him, she didn't give you his name. It was not until he actually appeared until Nicole finally used his name in context.

It took quite a bit of time before the story got moving and even once you found out the secret, there wasn't a big problem (in my opinion) for the story to evolve around. There was actually a very huge potential for this book but everything fell flat, from characters to events. I do however like the fact that Zin is Arabian. Generally the male guy that the girl always fall for is white so it is awesome to see diversity once in awhile.

I don't dislike Raven but I wished that it had a lot more meat for the reader to enjoy.