Dorian Skotos 
 Dorian Skotos 
 Dori...tos 
 Doritos? 
 I solved Dorian's mystery! He's a snack food! Hey, at least that would have been a real twist, unlike the one we got in the book. 
 1.5 stars. I've been slipping - I MISSED a love/drug/sex reference! Someone else had to point it out to me. The urge to skim bit me in the butt this time. Nooooooo!!! 
 It pains me to have to write another low-rated review this week, but no matter how much I tried to justify the good parts of Dark Light outweighing the bad, I just couldn't seem to get my mental scales to balance. Between the cringe-worthy terms, the excessive amount of character description, the ditzy lead character who used her vag for a brain, and the random placement of all things pop music - this book read as extremely shallow and immature for the amount of sexual content present. 
 Is Dark Light adult or NA? Who the hell knows. The second half of the book had enough sex scenes to qualify as mild erotica, but the main character is age 20. I'm going to hesitantly shelve this as NA, mainly because I like to be able to quick reference character ages by shelf. 
 The bones of the story reminded me of the Caster Chronicles (Beautiful Creatures) concept. One young woman has to choose whether to be claimed by the light or the dark. However, it was hard to find much of a story around Gaby's hormonal urges. 
 What I liked (the short list) : 
 A couple of the sex scenes. 
 The possibility of real conflict in book 2, given what we know now. 
 What I didn't like (the not-so-short-list) : 
 I don't care about every single clothing, hair, makeup, and lingerie detail being explained for multiple scenes. So much emphasis was put on looks. More than one of us in our buddy read noticed that Dorian's blue eyes were constantly mentioned. There was a lot of repetitiveness going on. 
 At first, I thought it would be a treat to read a book set in my city...until I started to feel like I was reading a very bizarre travel brochure. The city name was mentioned several times, as well as many areas of town, all by name - everything from the Broadmoor, Cheyenne Mountain, Chapel Hills Mall, Briargate, All 4 military bases, the AF Academy, Garden of the Gods, Palmer Park, Memorial Park, UCCS, downtown, etc. etc. Woodmen Road was mentioned twice when describing the location of the Jamba Juice, then in case we needed to know where on Woodmen the JJ was, we were informed that it was in Woodmen Commons (I used to live 6 blocks from that JJ and never knew the name of that shopping center). Instead of being driven back to her car, she was driven back to her car on Woodmen Road...an unnecessary detail, especially for people who don't live here. I didn't fully understand the point of all the site name dropping, especially when the characters were jumping around from point to point, even when locations weren't close together at all. 
 Gaby was not the sharpest tool in the shed. I don't care how much Dorian's (view spoiler)[magical (hide spoiler)] influence came into play, this chick came across as flighty, horny and shallow at all times. I don't want to read about how someone is constantly horny, regardless of the reason or influence. Give me hot sex when the time comes for a sex scene. The rest of the time, I need some substance. Physical attraction is supposed to be used to build sexual tension, not as a means for a character to forget how to function when not with another person. I didn't care how or why this chick had to stop herself from putting her hands between her legs in public. Karen Marie Moning can get away with this type of writing...the rest of us - not so much. Dorian came across as a creeper a good portion of the time and this chick was swooning like nobody's business. Some of her comments were downright disturbing as she acknowledged his tendency to violence. But hey...he could slit her neck right now and she would die in sweet ecstacy. He's even hot enough to not have to worry about those pesky condoms right away. Because hotness = safeness. Whatever weird voodoo magic Dorian has, keep me the hell away from it. 
 I could never be that blind, that stupid. Right? 
 Unless a story is about music or music related, I'm never a fan of lots of random song titles or musician references thrown about randomly in a story. It dates a book and often comes across as trying too hard to be relevant. Not everyone has the same taste in music, so let's leave "today's current hits" for the radio. 
 There was lots and lots of smirking. Dorian also licked his lips and smacked his lips. OH AND HE EVEN COOED ONCE. 
 The sexual terminology was cringe-worthy. Waterfall of her release? Our rivers unite into a deep, endless ocean? 
 It must be some awesome river mingling though, if it's inspiring the need to lie down and be bludgeoned to death with a large, blunt object. 
 Even if his only purpose in my life is to provide me with mind-numbing passion, I'd happily accept it with open arms. And open legs.