80.
Title: Nightshifted
Author: Cassie Alexander
Pages: 352
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Medium: Kindle
Acquisition:
Date Completed: December 29, 2012
Rating: **1/2

Another reviewer on LibraryThing comments that a female protagonist is rare in urban fantasy; apparently we have entirely different reading habits, because I find the genre to be saturated with strong-yet-annoyingly-vulnerable female protagonists with cozy-like occupations (shop clerk, DJ, nurse).  And Nightshifted is just such a novel.  The protagonist, Edie, is a nurse who takes a job on a secret supernatural ward in exchange for mysteries powers-that-be promising to keep her junkie brother clean.  Initially, this is an interesting plot device, but the novel proves to be more niche-focused than generally appealing; Nightshifted relies largely on genre fans with some personal attachment to nursing/hospitals, and falls flat for a reader like me. 

81.
Title: Divergent
Author: Veronica Roth
Pages: 576
Genre: YA Dystopian
Medium: Kindle
Acquisition: Borrowed from the library
Date Completed: December 30, 2012
Rating: ***

If you're read more than one young adult dystopian novel, then you've read this before. 

In a genre that essentially lacks originality, what I find important is character development and pacing.  In Divergent, the reader follows Tris as she (predictably) leaves the faction of her birth to join the (predictably) violent faction in charge of "security," where she (predictably) makes enemies, proves to be "different," and finds a teenage love interest.  Ultimately, Tris is not an unlikeable protagonist, but the pacing of the novel shifts from tedious to absurdly rushed. The shift is jolting, and disrupts any suspension of disbelief.  Ultimately, Divergent is stronger than novels like Delirium, but is not the best example of the genre that has been published in recent years.