Carrier of the Mark Book Review

Hi Guys,
Today I'll be reviewing Carrier of the Mark by Leigh Fallon which is the first book in the Carrier Trilogy. This was originally a story posted on InkPop that was published by HarperTeen. This was several years ago, and ever since I heard about it, I was excited to read the novel. The idea of this book seemed amazing, and IT'S BASED IN IRELAND! Needless to say, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this novel. Here's the synopsis from Goodreads:

Their love was meant to be.
When Megan Rosenberg moves to Ireland, everything in her life seems to fall into place. After growing up in America, she's surprised to find herself feeling at home in her new school. She connects with a group of friends, and she is instantly drawn to darkly handsome Adam DeRÍs.
But Megan is about to discover that her feelings for Adam are tied to a fate that was sealed long ago—and that the passion and power that brought them together could be their ultimate destruction.

My first impression of this book was that it would amazing. First of all, it was chosen from tons of stories by HarperTeen to be published from InkPop. It also sounds very ominous from the synopsis, it's based in Ireland, and the cover is pretty cool. I'm just going to go ahead and give you guys my rating so I can get my pros and cons out of the way. I give this novel 1/5 stars, and honestly I think this is being generous. I hate giving this book such a low rating because I really wanted to love this book, but I couldn't possibly give it anything higher than a 1/5 stars. Here are the pros:

Pros

• Ireland... 'nuff said
• The folk lore and general idea for the paranormal in the book is very original
• Rian and Aine
• Fionn
•  Randall the crow
• Caitlin (Megan's friend)

Yep, that seems about right. That's everything I could think of, I don't think I liked anything else. Now, on to the cons:

Cons 

• Megan
• Adam
• Megan and Adam's Relationship
• The awkward tension throughout the book
• The similarities to Twilight (not really going to go into this one but for a better look at what I mean check out the Cuddlebuggery Book Blog)
• The plethora of info-dumps

These cons were all major parts of the story, taking 3 stars away from it. The pros are pretty self-explanatory, but the cons aren't really that easily explained. If you don't like the main character (Megan) in a story, you won't like the story that much. You REALLY won't like the story if you can't stand the main character or even their love interest (Adam). This is how I felt throughout the majority of the book, I could stand them when they weren't together, but barely. When they're together, however, I couldn't stand either of them. Especially with horribly awkward scenes such as this one:

""Megan," Caitlin called from the direction of the bonfire.
I looked away from him (Adam) reluctantly. "Over here." A little embarrassed by my intense feelings, I pulled my hand away, but Adam held it to his lips, letting his tongue lightly caress my palm. My eyes closed in pleasure. "

Um... GROSS! I don't know of any couple, fictional or not, that do that. Oh, I forgot to mention that these two were on their "first date" and hadn't really talked to each other before. I just can't see how anyone would justify MAKING OUT with someone's HAND!!! There were several other awkward parts throughout the book, they just made me cringe... more than when I read a Dexter book. Lastly, the info-dumping... it was the only way that info about the world and mythology was given to the reader. A ton of information would be given to me, and I didn't understand that much of it the first time reading it. Even as I read it for the fifth time, I could only understand about half of the information given. It's like I went into a reading coma while reading these parts, and I couldn't understand any of it. From what I could grasp of the elemental mythology with the 5th, was that it was like Captain Planet... but I'm not sure. If I had to tell you whether or not to read it, I would say not to read it, it's a waste of your time. For recommendations, I would have to say if you really, REALLY, want to read it, I would recommend it for fans of Ireland, horrible romance, The Last Airbender, Captain Planet, gross love scenes, and corny love stories. That's the best I can do guys. I really hate that I hate this book because I really wanted to love it, but no such luck. I am, however, going to be reading the next book Shadow of the Mark. I want to see if the author can turn some of my cons into pros, and the idea is neat enough that I want to know what happens next. If it gets better, I will let you guys know whether it's worth getting through this book to read the next one. I hope it's amazing, but if it's anything like the first one, I'm going to be disappointed.

Check out the blog tomorrow for my In My Mailbox post, I have quite a few books to show you guys.