What is the theme here? Is it Magic, Mayhem and Mystery? Or perhaps just Neuroses, Nausea, and Novelties? Or could it even possibly be Blackouts, Bikinis, and Bravado? 
 Why the nausea, you ask? When Holly swoons over the fact that Elijah just called her Tuna Helper...uh, yeah. 
 2.5 Stars. Fans of Jennifer Echols seem to be unitedly (wow, no spell check on that - I had no clue unitedly was even a word) appalled over Levitating Las Vegas. Since this was to be my first Echols book, I went in with no expectations from what I'd expect out of this author when it comes to writing style. I'm not going to lie...my impressions from the cover and title left me thinking that this was going to be more of a lighter read than it was (yes, I didn't pay enough attention to the synopsis), but I wasn't bothered by finding out that I'd gotten a hold of something completely different. 
 Getting to see the Las Vegas underworld isn't a bad draw, after all. Having a magical element thrown in did throw me for a loop though. My impressions of magical realism are cutesy romance type of books. Yet I couldn't quite make myself call this a paranormal book. It read like a contemporary fiction with a few magical twists thrown in. 
 Something about the basic story idea reminded me of the Psy-Cop series, with the drugs providing a buffer against unwanted reactions. 
 The concept was a good one. The execution was not completely successful. There would be an interesting couple of chapters, then the story would sort of wander off into a lull. Maybe it's just me, but I wanted to feel the danger more than what was actually conveyed. I really wanted to like this book, but wound up feeling very ambivilent. I can't even say that I disliked the book (which is the reason for the extra half star), but it felt like we were being set up for more to happen than what actually happened. 
 I'm not someone who needs to have steamy sex in all of my books, or even a romance for that matter, but when we're being set up to watch a couple on their journey to be together, I'd almost expect more chemistry than provided. When we finally got to the hookup, it was kind of "eh." 
 This might be a case where it would have helped if the author had leaned more to one side when it came to subject matter and picked whether or not to be an "edgy/dark" book or a "romance" book. I could have handled if there was less romance and more of the "shady" dealings from the people who were out to sabotage Holly and Elijah, or I could have handled with a steamier romance angle. Either/or. 
 One extra note about something that I wasn't a fan of. Holly laments about someone's suicide by saying that it's awful someone had to die, but how cool was it that she did it in such a dramatic way. That paragraph really bothered me. People are responsible for their own decisions, but what a ridiculous idea this was to even plant in someone's head, that there could be a way to die which might look cool to others... 
 I am so sorry that this is probably one of the most boring reviews I've ever put out there. When you feel meh about a book, it's hard to write anything that's not meh? 
 This book provided from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.