Sinner

Obviously Steifvater knew that she had an interesting character in Cole St. Clair that she would write a book outside of the original trilogy centering around him. In this book, we get only Cole and Isabel's POV, both ending up in L.A. after the events of the Shiver series for different reasons. Isabel and her mother moved back to California to get away from Isabel's father, Cole goes for Isabel and to reignite his defunct music career (and fame).
While Cole is a fun character to read even at his lowest points, I have a huge problem with Isabel. It's good that Steifvater writes in a lot of vulnerable moments for her because otherwise Isabel would be completely unlikable. She is the definition of cold bitch and being a 17 year old with a privileged life, it's hard to have any sympathy for her or to relate to her in any way. She's a spoiled brat and treats everyone around her like she's completely above them in every aspect, even Cole who she keeps trying to convince herself she hasn't fallen in love with. How or why Cole keeps trying to get past that to have a relationship with her is beyond me as I would have given up on her much faster. They didn't have a sexual relationship until near the end of this book so you just want to yell at Cole to move on, there was literally nothing to be gained. Isabel is a character that needs professional help but not in a way you can feel sympathy for, you just want her to seek help to keep her from hurting literally everyone around her.
I still gave this book 5 stars because besides the problems with characterisation, I loved the story and the arc of the book. It was a book I didn't want to put down and that's all you can really ask for.