Review: Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

To begin, sorry it's been so long since my last post. I've been busy revising and reworking my query letter in a vain attempt to make it perfect...or at least seem like the story is more original and exciting than my last pitch did. I'll include it at the bottom of this post for anyone who would like to read it/comment on it. I always love to hear suggestions! Anyway, onto business...

So I'm ashamed to say that the main reason I picked this book up was because of the awesome cover. I've never branched out into books about angels before, because I've heard some terrible things about some of the books out there, but this one actually got good reviews. So I picked it up. Usually an author's first book is no more than 350 pages, but this one was a hefty 450 pages. More on that later.
Unearthly Summary:
In the beginning, there's a boy standing in the trees . . . .

Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood run through her veins not only makes her smarter, stronger, and faster than humans (a word, she realizes, that no longer applies to her), but it means she has a purpose, something she was put on this earth to do. Figuring out what that is, though, isn't easy.

Her visions of a raging forest fire and an alluring stranger lead her to a new school in a new town. When she meets Christian, who turns out to be the boy of her dreams (literally), everything seems to fall into place—and out of place at the same time. Because there's another guy, Tucker, who appeals to Clara's less angelic side.

As Clara tries to find her way in a world she no longer understands, she encounters unseen dangers and choices she never thought she'd have to make—between honesty and deceit, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny?

Unearthly Review:
Overall, I would say that this book is excellent. The plot wasn't very original, but the story was excellent, and the characters really came to life. This was the first book in the trilogy, and was 450 pages long. To be honest it felt a little too long, and a lot of the first 200 pages could have been edited out. But the second half of the book was phenominal.

There's a little bit of a love triangle going on, but the author even jokes in the book about love triangles being overplayed in literature. Respectable. And one thing that I really liked about this book was that with the main love story, she didn't just decide that she liked him and fell madly in love with him. It was only after talking with him and being friends with him for a while that she realized she liked him. And I hate to admit this, but the first time they kissed even brought a tear or two to my eyes. The writing was just that good.

My only complaint other than the first half being too long is that the climax was sort of anti-climatic, but it set the stage nicely for the sequel. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who likes romance novels or angel stories.

Desiderium Summary:
If she could, seventeen-year-old Rhiley Winters would wish to be a normal high school student who doesn't have to work three jobs to support herself. But to want anything is illegal. With the world at the mercy of one person's desires, the government uses chip implants to monitor citizens’ desires in a race to suppress and track those of  the unknown Desiderium—the one individual who unknowingly has the power to make anything happen by desiring it strongly enough.

Preoccupied with concealing that her parents abandoned her, Rhiley has no trouble suppressing her desires until she falls in love with Isaak, the son of a past Desiderium who makes her question everything she’s ever been told about desire. Then when a six-year-old Desiderium is killed for bringing dinosaurs back to life, children and teenagers become the target of society’s suspicions. As her life unravels, she begins to wonder if the new Desiderium could be someone she knows. Together, she and Isaak must either comply with the government’s stricter demands and never learn the truth about the Desiderium or outwardly defy them and spend years in prison.

Bitterblue Review

I am happy to say that I have finally finished reading Bitterblue, the sequel to Graceling that I mentioned in my last column. Sorry it took so long! I think the first book was roughly 400 pages, and it didn't take quite so long to get through because it was more action-packed, but the sequel was 550 pages full of very little action so it took forever to get through. I've you've never read Graceling by Kristin Cashore, I definitely wouldn't recommend this book, but if you loved Graceling I would recommend reading it.

Bitterblue Summary:
Eight years after Graceling, Bitterblue is now queen of Monsea. But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisors, who have run things since Leck died, believe in a forward-thinking plan: Pardon all who committed terrible acts under Leck’s reign, and forget anything bad ever happened. But when Bitterblue begins sneaking outside the castle—disguised and alone—to walk the streets of her own city, she starts realizing that the kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year spell of a madman, and the only way to move forward is to revisit the past.

Two thieves, who only steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck’s reign. And one of them, with an extreme skill called a Grace that he hasn’t yet identified, holds a key to her heart.

Bitterblue Review:
Overall, I would say that Bitterblue was good, it was just incredibly dragged out. The author definitely could have been heavily edited without the book losing much. It's sort of sad that after 550 pages I don't have a whole lot to say about the book. I really enjoyed Bitterblue as a character, she just didn't really do much. Her advisors keep her in the castle all day everyday and in 8 years she never ever leaves it...seems a little bit unrealistic if  you asked me. Then one day she just randomly decides to sneak out on her own in the middle of the night. Seems implausible.

Not to mention that throughout the entire book the author teases the reader with a potential love triangle, so for 500 pages you're waiting for something to happen, and then when something finally does happen it's completely unsatisfying and leads nowhere. I won't spoil the ending for any YA lovers out there considering reading this book, but I will say that the ending was altogether unsatisfying and depressing. The journey was slow, albeit somewhat interesting, but the end was totally not worth it.

At any rate, I'm onto bigger and better things (in the YA world at least), so hopefully my next review will be more positive. More to come!

Everneath Review

After completely reworking my pitch I just submitted it last night. Nothing is likely to come of it, but it was a good exercise, and I think it made my query letter stronger. Now I just need to finish my new round of revisions, and then I'll send it off again. I'm still working on finishing Bitterblue, the sequel to Graceling which I reviewed a few days ago, so hopefully that will be up soon. In the meantime, I recently finished reading Everneath by Brodi Ashton. Overall, I would say it was pretty good, but nothing to swoon over. It left on a cliff hanger, so I'm assuming there will probably be a sequel, but I'm still not sure if I'll read it or not.

Everneath Summary:
Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans. Now she's returned- to her old life, her family, her friends- before being banished back to the underworld... this time forever.

She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can't find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these months reconnecting with her boyfriend, Jack, the one person she loves more than anything. But there's a problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who first enticed her to the Everneath, has followed Nikki to the mortal world. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back- this time as his queen.

Evernath Review:
The premise of this story was only somewhat unique, but the plot was pretty good. It held my interest until the end, even though the main character was far from loveable. Her whole reason for going to the Everneath in the beginning was because her mom recently died, and she began to doubt that her boyfriend, Jack, was being faithful to her. Overall those didn't seem like very logical reasons for her to make such a drastic choice and give up her life--especially since her boyfriend didn't actually cheat on her.

The first few chapters were confusing, but in a good way. They kept me wondering what exactly was going on in Nikki's world. After that though the plot started to slow down. She had six months to say goodbye, and she spent the first four months doing a whole lot of nothing...just going to school and not making any attempt to make headway on her relationships with her dad, brother, best friend, and ex-boyfriend Jack. There's nothing like a whole lot of wasted time in a book.

The rest of the characters though were pretty good, and had a lot of depth. Nikki just didn't seem to have much to her. If you're an avid YA reader, I might recommend this book, especially if you like stories of the Underworld, but if not, I probably wouldn't recommend it.

Happy Monday everyone!