I picked up the book at 4:30pm. I read straight through until 12:30am and had only 20 pages to go when I absolutely had to go to bed so I could at least be in some acceptable shape for work the next day. In a word: RAMPANT is addictive.  And like the alicorn venom that affects the body at an alarmingly fast rate, the book takes hold of the reader from the moment the first unicorn shows and doesn’t let go until you’ve read it all the way through. Except, you know, reading the book doesn’t give you all the nasty side-effects of having been run through with a poisoned unicorn horn.

RAMPANT, like Diana Peterfreund‘s work in the SECRET SOCIETY GIRL series, features a new cast of spunky characters! This set of girls (whose ages range in the teens) are sent to the Eternal City to train to hunt down (and slaughter) killer unicorns. They are the virginal descendants of Alexander the Great, gifted with the ability to be superhero-esque in their fight against the beasts.

I admit: I didn’t know if I was going to “buy” it. Meaning, the story, not the book itself. I wasn’t sure how Diana would feed me this story about killer unicorns galloping about the world, goring and eating humans. But, in the opening chapter, in one single scene, I bought the whole thing — hook, line, and sinker.

The heroine and narrator, Astrid, is an unwilling hunter caught up in the monstrous world wherein she must learn to be a warrior and accept it as her own destiny. This gift, or this curse as it may be, was thrust upon her, and throughout the novel she struggles with her ability to commit to the cause. To take responsibility. To actually become, willingly, a unicorn hunter. She toys with ways to escape the enormous task, considers unloading the burden — after all, the only thing she would have to do would be to cash in her V-card and her special ability would be gone. Perhaps, maybe, she could return to her normal life — nevermind that the life she left behind wasn’t much of one to begin with. Her indecision keeps the reader on edge as one wonders: will she take up her destiny?

The answer, of course, is that she must. How could she not? But what will it take, to bring her to that edge, to push her over the line — where, then, is the point of no return?

That tension there kept me hooked (well, along with all the unicorn attacks that would come and the bloody mess that it would leave behind) all throughout the novel. I kept reading, hardly glancing up, hardly eating until I was twenty pages from the end. I needed to know: how would it end. I knew, even as I bought this book, that there would be another to come… now, I just hate that I have to wait until Fall 2010 to get my hands on it.

The characters in the book are incredibly diverse. Phil has an air of rebellion around her, a devil-may-care attitude, and yet she shows such love for her cousin Astrid, I just love her all around. At one point, your heart breaks for her. Cory, the ultra-focused unicorn hunter that was the first to arrive, comes off somewhat misunderstood. And Lilith, Astrid’ mother, who had told her of the existence of unicorns for years. At first, I was ambivalent towards her. But later… later, I strongly disliked her.

And Giovanni. (Slight swoon here). It’ll be fun to see how his role grows as the series progresses.

Perhaps where Diana shows her strength is not only in the prose that she writes. It’s fluid. There’s a strong Voice in the work. The descriptions are vivid, elaborate at times. If you’ve read her other work, none of this will be a surprise.

But the details! The history! The richness! The retelling, recreating of worlds and histories. The revelations that come, little by little, and never at a rush… great timing, excellent pacing, but extraordinary details.

RATING: 4.5/5 stars.  {goodreads doesn’t allow for my 1/2 point, so I’ll award it here}

Disclosure: No material connection