Name: The gathering
Rating: 3.783783783783784 (74 reviews)
ISBN: 9780061797026

Kelley Armstrong

Sixteen-year-old Maya suspects there may be a relationship between her paw-print birthmark, her connection with wild animals, and strange events occurring in her tiny Vancouver Island community, where a medical research facility harbors big secrets.

The gathering

Sarah Sammis

The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong is the first of the Darkness Rising series. It brings together so many of my interests that it's hard for me to write a review that doesn't just dissolve into a pure fandom ranting. If rural Canada, secret labs, Native American creation myths and shape changing aren't your thing, then The Gathering won't be your cup of tea. If they are, then you will probably love the book.

Maya Delaney lives with her adoptive parents on Vancouver island (not to be confused with Vancouver city) in British Columbia, Canada. Her father is a ranger and he like everyone else works for the lab that owns the town. Think Eureka but set in Canada.

Maya is still reeling from the death of her best friend, Serena, a girl who was on the high school swim team and new the lake better than anyone. Despite that, she somehow drowned over the summer. Serena and she had planned to head into town for Maya's birthday to get her paw print shaped birthmark made more permanent through tattooing. When Maya and her mother make the trip, Maya's life is turned upside down and that's where the book for me when from pretty damn good to fricking amazing.

Before I explain why, let me step back and discuss the cover. It's a photograph of a girl in 3/4 profile. She has dark hair, dark eyes, red lips and blue to turquoise skin. Even before opening the book the cover made me think of Turquoise Woman who is an aspect of Changing Woman in the Navajo creation myths. Carrie Schechter, the photographer of the cover, acknowledges the desire to convey Maya's Native American heritage, but doesn't specifically mention the Diné connection.

The tattoo parlor, though, does. While there, Maya who suspects she's Native American, but doesn't know specifically from which people, is recognized as Diné. But there must be something wrong with her as the Diné don't give up their children. The birthmark, though, seals everything for the old woman and she exclaims Yee n'aldooshi. And that's when I feel head over heels in squee for The Gathering.

I'm including a long list of other reviews that go more into the YA aspects of the book. As there are so many reviews on that piece of the book, I decided to stick with the pieces that made me jump up and down with excitement instead.

I am eagerly awaiting the second book, The Calling which comes out April 2012.

Emmalie Stearns

I found this book very slow, and not exciting. I have finished the book and I still have many of questions. If this book was just about Maya as a teenager, dealing with Serena's death I think I would of enjoyed it, but the ending was very quick. BUT I loved the romance in it.

Lynn Braden

The Gathering is the first of a series of three books. I had some trouble with this book because I kept wondering when I was going to get to the real story. By the time I finally got to the meat of the story, the book abruptly ended in the middle of a forest fire of unexplained origin. The beginning of the book was about the mysterious death of one teenager who was captain of her swim team and yet drowned in a lake. The other teenager who survives becomes the protagonist. The rest of the story mildly unfolds. A young teenage girl in a small Canadian town who tries to deal with her parents and figure out her relationships with friends is a pretty familiar plot line and doesn't change until the middle of the book when we finally get clues about the possibility of the young girl being a skin-walker. Though we see signs throughout the rest of the book that this might be true, there is also a murder and several unsolved mysteries that the author leaves hanging at the end of the book. The book does attempt to grab the readers' emotions at several points in the story, it just doesn't grab hard enough. I'm not yet sure if I want to take the time to read the other two books in the Darkness Rising series.

Celia Adams

After reading and being unimpressed with the first series, Darkest Powers, I had no desire to continue on with this series. However, against my better judgement and after a convincing yet inaccurate book trailer, I decided to give this one a go, promising I wouldn't force myself to continue if I wasn't into it. Unfortunately I am no more impressed by this book than the last one, though I do wish I'd had this moment months ago right after I read the Darkest Powers series, so I'd understand the references that I can remember but not place. Also unfortunately and unfaithfully, I feel I will end up giving the other 2 books a shot, because though I didm't like the story, Kelley Armstrong has a talent for weaving complex plots that propel you with desire to find out what happens.

Ashley shackelford

Rianne van der Wiel

Briar's Reviews

Jessica Deaner

The world seemed to dip and darken and I smelled wet earth and thick musk and fresh blood. The wind whipped past, like I was running. Running so fast the ground whizzed beneath me and the wind cut across my skin . . . Maya Delaney has always felt a close bond with nature. The woods around her home are a much-loved sanctuary - and the pawprint birthmark on her hip feels like a sign that she belongs. But then strange and terrible things begin to happen in the tiny medical-research town of Salmon Creek (population: 200). The captain of the swim team drowns mysteriously in the middle of a calm lake. Mountain lions appear around Maya's home, and won't go away. Her best friend, Daniel, starts experiencing 'bad vibes' about certain people and things. One of those people is Rafe - the new bad boy in town. What is he hiding - and why is he suddenly so interested in Maya . . . ?

The gathering

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