Book Review: How to Date an Alien by Magan Vernon

How to Date an Alien by Magan Vernon
(My Alien Romance, #1)
Release Date: December 6, 2011
Publisher: DarkSide Publishing; 272 pages

High school senior Alex Bianchi's estranged father gets her an internship at Circe Operations Center to pad her college applications. But Circe isn't your typical military base. It's an alien-run operation center and not all of the aliens are friendly, especially the one that tries to kill Alex on her first day. When Ace, a dark-eyed Caltian, enters and saves the day, she can't help but be drawn to him. Can these star-crossed lovers survive when they're on the brink of intergalactic war?

I want to thank the author, Magan Vernon, for giving us the opportunity to read and review her highly enjoyable HOW TO DATE AN ALIEN. I enjoyed reading this and I look forward to the second book, as much as the title might scare me, I know it'll be great!

First, I must comment about how much I love the fact that the ranks of the different alien species and humans are like the same ranks of high school. I definitely think that makes this book more relateable to those of high school age, or ones that haven't been out of high school long. Or hell, even someone like me, who has been out of high school for awhile. It shows you that it's not just humans that act a certain way or treat people a specific way. Ace, who is the alien love interest in this story, happens to be in the highest class, the popular, snobby 'I'm better than you' types where humans are just the loners/losers - so you can see just by that how interesting a love story between these two cliques would be.

Alex is a seventeen year old girl living in a small town of Illinois with her younger half brother, mother and step father. She hasn't spoken to her father in seven years, he is in the air force. When an Ivy League school comes to her school interested in her, they notice she doesn't have much to her transcript except amazing grades so she blurts that she'll be doing an internship at an Arizona air force base. Thankfully, her father is able to pull strings and get her registered. Circe is supposed to be just a regular air force base but when Alex gets there, she things are completely not normal. Especially since she is strangled by an old lady who definitely is stronger than what an old woman should be. But have no fear, Ace, one of those popular kids, a Caltian, saves her and she later learns that she's been assigned to work with him.

That's just the beginning of this amazing story. There's a slight love triangle, if you want to consider it that. One of the interns, Gavin, likes Alex but she really doesn't like him back, at least in a romantic sense. I like most of the interns except for two of them. At one point, I felt let down by them but they came back and restored my faith in them.

Who knew aliens could be so attractive, right? Well, Ace puts any questions to rest about how could someone like or want to date an alien. I want to know if he has a brother, by chance? ;) Besides there being an extremely hot (though, not literally as he's really cold) alien there's also plenty of drama, action and suspense to get you through. Though, most of the action is toward the end but it's worth it.

This was a quick, easy, fun read and I recommend it to anyone who is, like most of my reviews, a fan of YA fantasy. Especially of the supernatural sorts. And if you enjoy this, get ready for it's sequel later this year!