Meg Collett: Fear University

In the first in a new series Meg Collett takes the reader to your not so average University:

Ollie is very unique, she has been diagnosed with a disease that prevents her from feeling pain. There are people that would take advantage of such a gift, expecially after Ollie is abandoned by her mother at age 10 and she is passed from foster home to foster home. When she lands on one foster home that has a let's make Ollie scream game, she end up killing a man and is on the run. Ollie thinks that she's the baddest person in town but she is about to get a rude awakening when she comes face to face with what she will learn are aswangs. Man by day creature by night and they are winning the war against the Hunters. Ollie may have been on her own for a long time but she is about to find a purpose in fighting the aswangs that would harm humans and live for the fear they inflict.

Alright that was a roller-coaster ride and this book was not what I was expecting at all. I thought it was going to be a fun little easy with a bit of romance through in to it (honestly I did not have that high of hopes). What I got instead was a fairly dark, action packed read that I did not want to put down (with a little bit of romance and sexual tension thrown in there too), so Bravo Collett for surprising me. That said I did find some aspects of the book predictable but overall it was a good fun read.

Fear University is more like Fear High School, maybe this was due to the fact that the university was so small and  the interaction with the same people all the time, but there was nothing university like in this book to me. The whole clique aspect, with the mean girls and everyone pinning for the same guy, sounds like high school to me. However, this High School aspect is countered with the darkness of the book; From the Lets Make Ollie Scream game to the action/fight scenes these added to a more well rounded read.

I like Ollie as a main character and her haunting past. Though I was able to figure out the "major" twist very early on. The one thing I will point out is that for all her gruff and front she was at times a whiny character especially when she did not get her way. I think this is a maturity factor and as I said above, more like High School than University. Her disease is an interesting aspect for Collett to play with. Even though Ollie is unable to feel pain she is still able to get hurt and hurt badly and that seems to happen quite a bit in this book. I also think that Ollie seems to heal faster than normal, maybe this is a side affect to the disease maybe something else. I like that Luke had the frame of mind to try and teach her understand that not feeling pain could actually be a liability and to try to not get hurt.

I would classify this book as new adult, as the main character is 19 and I think there is way too many thoughts of sex and the one sex scene was highlighted too much for a YA read. There is also how the aswangs saliva affects Luke, basically makes he extremely sexually aggressive and this is also highlighted in the book as well.

This is the first book that I have read by Collett and I think that I am going to enjoy this series. I'm already on the hunt for the next book.

Enjoy!!!

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