Revealers by Amanda Marrone

Jules is a witch and a revealer, a witch who fights against the dark forces that threaten humanity, mostly vampires and werewolves. It is her job, along with that of her friends, to kill these monsters when the older witches- her mother and those of her friends, find out where such menaces are hiding. To dispose of the bodies, the Revealers have the assistance of two boys, the sons of members of the coven, one of who happens to be Jules' friend, Connor.

Well, she hopes that he can be more than her friend, but the leader of the Coven and Connor's mother, Mrs. Keyes, is trying to keep them apart. While she hasn't outright forbade them to see each other, she is definitely giving them the metaphorical stinkeye.

But Jules and her friends are coming up on an important milestone. Soon they will be 18, and be inducted into the inner circle of the Coven. Since all their birthdays cover the range of about a month, with Jules being the youngest, they decide to do something special for their birthdays, and buy each other special necklaces with their birthstones on them. And Jules wants to do a spell that will allow their stones to protect them on their missions.

But when they attend coven, they can see the stones begin to spark. Strange, but they aren't sure why. It's only a few days later when they realize that something has spooked their nominal leader, Margo, who is also the eldest of the girls. She seems very unlike herself. They assume that this is because Margo has finally gotten her wish to join the inner circle, but that isn't it at all.

As time passes and the girls join the inner circle, Jules comes to realize that something is very wrong. Once her friends join, they all grow very, very frightened. She confides her concerns to her mother, and finds that later, her mother's cauldron belches a strange blue smoke- some that somehow negates the danger-sensing powers of her charged birthstone. She confides in Conner, and he's the only one who seems to believe her.

His mother has set him the task of cataloguing the many trophies and items taken by the coven over the hundred years they have been operating, for eventually, the Revealers will hand their task over to their own daughters, who will become the new Revealers. He manages to bring her a present, a ring from the stash of items the coven has that reveals the truth, and gives it to Jules. Jules breathes a sigh of relief, trusting him alone among all the coven, but as the date of her own birthday draws nearer, and one of her classmates becomes a target of the Revealers, she's going to have to discover exactly what is going on- even if it means finding out that everything she knows and has been taught is a lie...

I got this book primarily because of the coven/witch aspect of the book, but I ended up finding it annoying and tedious to read. Mainly because, rather like the book "Tantalize", Jules and her friends find the adults around them, even their own family and the one they love, completely untrustworthy. They are being lied to, manipulated, and decieved for both power and greed.

And I found that rather annoying. Yeah, people backstab each other all the time, but there's something horrible about reading a story where all the adults can't be trusted. It's a rather bleak worldview, and I felt somewhat insulted, being an adult myself. I can understand teens feeling like they are on their own, but this just... Even Jules's mother is lying to her and decieving her.

And that pretty much ruined the story for me, and once it was over, I felt a bit relieved that I didn't have to force myself through any more pages. Oh, it's well written- don't get me wrong about that, but the distaste for the "everyone is a liar and backstabber" plot made me grit my teeth to the point that I was getting a throbbing headache.

I wouldn't recommend this story, mainly because it's so depressing to read, and I felt that the main characters seemed to forgive the mothers who lied to them far, far too easily for my taste. I found this book distasteful to read, and would recommend staying far, far away unless something like this floats your boat.