Review: Vulnerable by Amy Lane

Vulnerable (Little Goddess #1)
Amy Lane
iUniverse
ISBN-10: 0595337465
February 4, 2005

Working graveyards in a stop & rob seemed a small price for Cory to pay in order to get her degree and get the hell out of Nor-Cal. She was terrified of disappearing into the aimless vortex that awaited the lost and the young that haunted her neck of the woods. Until the night she actually stopped looking at her books and looked up. What awaited her was a world she had only read about—one filled with fantastical creatures that she was sure she could never be. And then Adrian walked in—and she discovered that risking your life was nothing compared to facing who you really were. And then falling in love.

Cory works the graveyard shift in a little gas station to pay for college. Her one goal is to get her degree and get out of the black hole that is the boring hick town she grew up in. She doesn't want to end up like others who live there, aimless and without purpose; going through days without knowing what's out there.

But everything changes one night when she sees something strange in someone. Next thing she knows, a world of magic and fantastical creatures is all around her, where nothing is what it seems and every word could bring disaster. She founds out she's more than just a broke college students and Adrian, a beautiful boy, is her doorway into this world.

I literally could not put Vulnerable down. It was one of those rare books that I have to read between red lights and while at the grocery counter. From the first page, I could completely relate to Cory. She wants more from life than living in a boring town with the same old job, seeing the same old people day in, day out. She's got a mouth on her, razor-sharp wit and is the picture-perfect image of a tough goth chick.

Adrian might look like a really gorgeous nineteen-year-old, but he's actually a hundred and fifty years old and when he meets Cory, it's indescribable to him. From the beginning he can see past the black lipstick and dozen or so of earrings. He's always had that bad boy image going for him, being a totally playboy with girls but Cory sees past that and that adds to his attraction to her.

I think that character development can make or break a book and in this case, it completes makes it. Every single character is so well-developed, so strong yet vulnerable that it's hard not to fall in love with each one. The story is written in Cory's, Adrian's and Green's points of views and while I thought that would only confuse the reader, it makes things clearer. The plot and everything else just flows well and makes Vulnerable a very enjoyable book to read.

Mrs. Lane is a self-published author and admittedly, there's a number of editing errors in the book. However, as I read more of these wonderful characters and great plot, these mistakes don't matter at all. Vulnerable is a unmistakable story about love and how you can find it in the most surprising and unconventional places and I, for one, cannot wait to read more of Mrs. Lane's Little Goddess series.

[Original review posted on NOR]