Boundless (Another series you really need to read)

Boundless is the final book in Cynthia Hand's excellent trilogy that began with Unearthly. I've just closed the last page, and I'm already sad. These characters have worked their way into my soul and I'm hoping Ms. Hand finds a way to include them in future tales.

Clara has broken up with Tucker, and she, Christian, and Angela are going to Stanford as the book opens. Clara and Christian are still having visions and they are terrifying, with blood and fighting and swords involved. Angela is also having a vision, but she feels certain she knows how hers will play out...until she turns up pregnant. The Black Watchers are still around, and Clara's brother Jeffrey has turned up, working in a pizza place not far from Stanford. When Clara's father shows up, she and Christian know events are moving to a head, but they still don't know what's coming. There are lots of other things going on as well, including Christian's longing for Clara and her determination to stay away from Tucker (which doesn't always go so well).

One of the best things about this series is the character development Clara experiences over the course of the books. She grows from an unsure teenager to someone who knows she can stand up for herself and those she loves. Her sense of humor is absolutely the best part of the story; I could totally hear her voice in my head and it was dead on with what a teen would say. I also love Christian and his devotion, his willingness to wait; though I always wanted Clara to end up with Tucker, Christian held my heart in a lot of ways.

The beginning of the book is a little slow, but not annoyingly so. Once the action picks up, however, it's next to impossible to put the book down. I actually became reluctant to pick Boundless up again this afternoon, knowing I was so close to finishing it and not wanting to let go. Definitely going on the keeper shelf, this series is probably the best I've accidentally discovered in this genre. Highly recommended!

~taminator40

A New Post...Yay! A Review...Double Yay!!

I've been reading like a fiend, not that you'd know it from the frequency of posts to this blog. Problem is, most all of my reads have been for the fabulous Historical Novel Society, which means I can't post my reviews until after they are published. But now I'm officially caught up on reviews for HNS and I can finally, finally attack my own TBR pile with gusto!

I actually did a Great Book Purge last week, culling nearly 200 books from my shelves (and floor spaces, and under bed spaces, etc.).  Right now the majority of the said cull-ees are still in my living room downstairs, waiting for me to get them to either my library or Goodwill. I invited some friends over on Monday to take what they wanted and I still have around 125 books left. It's all good...I can now walk beside my bed without danger of knocking Mt. TBR over with books I've since lost interest in or will never read again. I'm so PROUD of getting some of these books out of my house (okay...they'll all be out eventually, I swear). I even have a small pile by my bed of books that will be Up Next. Wow...not having to search for books because I've stashed them all over is liberating! And K and I also Drove By Barnes and Noble the other day while out shopping...it was hard but we did it! Go, Us!

Anyway, the first book I've finished that I can share the review here is Rapture by Lauren Kate. I just published my review on Amazon...it took a while to take off but it's such a fine ending to the series that my review is glowing, I tell you. So without further ado...here 'tis.
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I must admit that in the first 100 or so pages of Rapture, the long awaited finale to Lauren Kate's fabulous Fallen series, I was becoming discouraged. Was I really going on a quest to find three unknown objects that would avert the Fall of the angels from Heaven? A quest, really? And there seemed to be an awful lot of flying through the air with its myriad descriptions of what Luce was seeing and feeling but not really moving the story along much. But then Kate brings us to the action of actually finding the sought -after artifacts and what must be done with them and things began to pick up, and once Luce is led to her major discovery, I was all in (despite my eye rolling at the "battle" between Dee and her sister--the cheesiest lines of the entire series, I swear).







Of course this book is the final tale of the great love affair of mortal Luce and angel Daniel, under a curse to find and then lose one another over lifetime after lifetime. Now that Lucifer is involved, he's determined to re-create the great Fall of the angels from Heaven, and Luce, Daniel, and their band of angel/demon friends have to nine days in which to avert the disaster. While I may not have been enamored of the initial build-up (some of which felt like filler material, there simply to stretch the story out with minute descriptions of rocks and other natural features), I can say, hands down, that the final third of this book is wonderful! While I don't subscribe to Kate's vision of religion, I do have to say it's beautiful, well written, and a very fitting way to end the series. In fact, the final chapters of this book are so well done, filled with so much heart and intensity, I was simply blown away. So often book series merely come to a sputtering halt but this book brings another level of engagement to the story. Absolutely a perfect ending, with even a bit of room for new stories to be told. I hope Ms. Kate will supply us with more of her gifted imagination with the characters we've grown to know and love.


~taminator40

Hallowed

I was so pleasantly surprised when I read Unearthly by Cynthia Hand; in a sea of young adult paranormals, that one rose to the top with its superior writing, engaging characters, believable narration, and quick paced plot. So I was eagerly looking forward to its sequel, Hallowed, though of course I was a little nervous because we all know about the follow ups that just don't measure up.

Relax. This one's as good as the first, if not better.

Hallowed follows our heroine, Clara, through her senior year of high school. Clara's got the perfect boyfriend (Tucker! What a dream!), a couple of good friends who are also angel-bloods (Christian and Angela), and a close knit family, but there's still plenty of turmoil with the threat of Samjeeza, the evil Black Wing, still there and Clara's doubts over her failed purpose continuing to gnaw at her. Though her mother is beginning to share more of her secrets about being an angel, Clara is still frustrated; she knows there's more to all this and she's anxious. Add in the usual angst about going to college, and leaving your boyfriend, and you have a story that is both engaging and realistic, even if we are talking angels here. It's one flaw is the pacing at times seems a bit slow, at least in perhaps the first third.

The true beauty of this book, however, comes after Clara and her brother learn a disturbing revelation about their eager, vivacious mother, and it's there that the story picks up steam and tears at the heart strings. Clara has to be strong while her world collapses; she faces the awful truth with just the perfect amount of dread, denial, and depression. It's here that the big revelations come and they are huge; it's here that Clara must grow up unwillingly, face the Black Wing, and make decisions that will come with huge costs.

Ms. Hand does an outstanding job of pulling the reader into Clara's thoughts through her first person narrative, so much so that I could feel what she was experiencing with every word. The emotions are strong but Clara is stronger. This is a series that is well thought out and truly well written, and I'm hooked. Highly recommended.


~taminator40

Original Sin by Lisa Desrochers

Original Sin, the second book in the Personal Demons series, picks up just a few weeks after Frannie and Luc (a former demon) have been tagged for Heaven, hopefully putting King Lucifer behind them. Luc in his newly human form has never been happier, and Frannie is delighted with both her boyfriend and her relationship with her dead twin, Matt, who is now her guardian angel. Even though Gabe has left, things seem to be going well until new demons arrive in town, still determined to get Frannie and her Sway, and a mysterious young woman moves into the apartment next to Luc's and begins to infiltrate their lives. Suddenly Frannie's final summer before college is not so easy; Luc must defend Frannie and himself against demons determined to take them both to Hell; and Matt just wants Luc out of the picture.

Original Sin is gut-wrenching and very, very dark; we get first hand looks at Hell and Lucifer, and the demons who come after Frannie will stop at nothing to get to her. Luc's admission for how he feels about Frannie is an absolutely stunning moment, but what comes next is even more heartbreaking. I love that Frannie and Luc are not living in a vacuum; the community at large is reeling from what they've done and how far Lucifer is willing to go to get his hands on Frannie's Sway. Possible spoiler...My one issue is how Frannie falls apart later in the book, though with all she goes through, it's understandable. I just want her to remain strong at all times, unrealistic though it might be. And while I can understand her attraction to both Luc and Gabe, the waffling gets a little irritating, but not enough to distract from the overall storyline.

I am amazed at how well done Original Sin is; I love that Ms. Desrochers is not afraid to go wherever her characters lead, however dark it may be. I'm impressed that much of what she writes seems based in biblical fact, and the depth of feeling she evokes with her writing is astounding. I wasn't expecting what happened, but I'm totally on board with it. This is a young adult paranormal series that is head and shoulders above most of what's out there right now. I'm just ill that I have to wait so long for the third installment!

~taminator40

Not Just Another Angel Story

Unearthly *could* have been just another entry in the rampant paranormal young adult genre...good angels (blah, blah, blah)...bad angels (blah, blah, blah)...impossible love story (yada yada yada). But almost from the get-go, I felt something was different; it felt more, well, real, than in a lot of the books similar in description. Though we know almost immediately that Clara is of angel blood, that she's pretty and fast, etc., we also learn that she's insecure, worried about her "purpose", and feels left out in her new school. Still, she's determined to follow the vision of her purpose and somehow rescue super hunky Christian...though from what or even how, she doesn't have a clue.

For much of the novel, Unearthly follows Clara as she slowly learns more about being of angel blood, though not from her mother (which becomes a source of irritation), and her quest to find out what she's supposed to do. The fact that she ends up with orange hair adds to her ordinariness; the fact that she's often tongue-tied and even a bit clumsy makes her endearing. And yes, I admit I loved that she had good banter with her best friend's brother, and I hoped that somehow, those two would find their way to one another.


While there really aren't major surprises in Unearthly, I found myself quickly turning the pages and reading past my bedtime in order to get through so I could satisfy my curiosity. I really wish I could pinpoint precisely what it is that had me so intrigued about this story; I think it's mostly that Clara, despite her unearthliness, is very real and easy to relate to. It's a thoroughly engaging story that manages to mix the paranormal with the everyday with neither going off the deep end. I'm hooked.
 
~taminator40

Passion by Lauren Kate

Passion is the third book in the Fallen trilogy, and it's chock full of answers for all those burning questions we've had since the first book. Luce is determined to find out just what it is that has kept Daniel chasing her through centuries and centuries, across time zones and continents; she must know if it's really love or just part of the curse cast on Daniel at his Fall from heaven. Once she steps into an Announcer, she's on her way back through time and all the lives she's shared with her angel, on a mission to end the curse once and for all, one way or another. Hard on her heels is Daniel, desperate to find Luce before she irrevocably messes with history and destroys everything.



What I Loved/Liked: I loved getting glimpses into Luce and Daniel's shared pasts. I loved that we progressively went further and further back in time until that cataclysmic moment when we finally find out how it all began. I liked that it's obvious that Ms. Kate has done her biblical research and has given careful thought to how to make the story come together. I liked that we learned the back story to Daniel and Cam, and I liked that the Nephilim played a role (however small) in helping Daniel. I also liked the set up for the final book. I liked that each lifetime she experienced brought her closer to the final answers she so desperately seemed to need. Which brings me to...


What I Didn't Like: I wanted to scream at Luce more than once when she continued to question Daniel's feelings for her over and over and over...what? Did she think he was doing this for kicks? At times I felt she was just too slow on the uptake and too quick to blame Daniel. And even though she *knew* that she shouldn't mess around with events, that didn't always stop her meddling...really? I also didn't like how Luce seemed to lose herself whenever she was in Daniel's arms. If she thinks that is all there is to love, she's going to have a midlife crisis of epic proportions.


What I Hated: Bill. While I could see why Ms. Kate included him (heaven knows...haha, get it?...Luce needed guidance), he was too comic, adding way too much of a comic book feel that was diametrically opposed to the tone of the previous two books. It was almost a Cinderella and the mice scenario--a good way to get Luce into costume but surely she could have thought of something herself. Or let her meet up with one of her traveling angel buddies to help? And I know what his ultimate goal was, but I think it distracted from the final scenes in the long run.


However, all that being said, I did like Passion very much and I felt it was a necessary addition for us to understand through experience what everything was really about. Luce needed to know first hand and so did we. The final scenes were absolutely worth any slow spots and I'm psyched for the final book. I think it's gonna be worth the wait.

~taminator40

Torment

Torment, the second book in Lauren Kate's Fallen series, picks up with Luce leaving Sword & Cross and moving (without her parents' knowledge) across the country to the exclusive Shoreline School where she will be supposedly safe from those enemies who want to see she and Daniel parted forever. Luce finds herself being kept in the dark as Cam and Daniel combine forces to fight the Fallen, and she doesn't take it lightly; but when she discovers that Shoreline is a haven for the Nephilim (offspring of a human and an angel), she feels less alone. With the help of her roommate Shelby and new friend Miles, Luce begins to take control of the shadowy Announcers that have plagued her, and also begins attending exclusive classes designed to educate the Nephilim. But the biggest change? Luce becomes unsure of her relationship with Daniel after all his secrecy and the constant bickering between them.

For the most part, I absolutely loved Torment. I especially love that Luce has doubts about her eternal, undying love for Daniel; that makes it so much more realistic than many of the other young adult books out there. I love that Luce is taking charge of her life, making her own decisions, trying to find out more about those mysterious past lives that she shared with Daniel. I loved the new characters, including Miles; while as a romantic I naturally want to see Luce end up with Daniel, I can see the appeal of Miles and I like that I'm torn between the two. Shelby is too much fun, and I also enjoyed the additions of Francesca and Steven as teachers (but do I detect something more sinister in those two? Hmmmm....).

What works in Torment works really, really well. There is quite a bit of bickering between Luce and Daniel, and the frustration between them is mounting. But when they work as a couple, they truly work. There were moments when I wished the action would move on a little more quickly, but I was enthralled with the Announcers and the way they can take Luce into the past. As with any sequel, I also have to remind myself that I'm not in charge; it's all up to the author and where she wants to take us. And so far, I'm right along for the ride. Passion, the next in the series, is already pre-ordered and I'm revved up for it.

~taminator40

Personal Demons

"Even magic can't banish her personal demons. She's got to face them down on her own." This quote from Luc, a real demon sent to earth to tag Frannie Cavanaugh's soul for Hell, gives a bit of a glimpse into the layers of this wonderful debut novel by Lisa Desrochers. Sure, it's a paranormal aimed at teenage girls, but it's also a tension-filled, romantic, scary struggle between the forces of Good and Evil battling over a soul that is already conflicted and filled with remorse and guilt. The fact that said forces themselves often blur the lines makes this story so much more than just a fun romp filled with otherworldly creatures. In fact, it's often so dark in tone that I found myself worried about the final outcome.

Frannie should be excited to be graduating high school, yet there's a dark cloud hanging over her life: her brother Matt died tragically ten years earlier and Frannie is convinced it was her fault. While her family is religious, Frannie has forsaken God because He allowed Matt's death, which makes her all the more susceptible to the charms of newcomer Luc, a boy whose dark personna and sexy overtures makes Frannie's heart race. What she doesn't know is that Luc has been sent by Satan to get Frannie to sin in order to tag her soul, and even Luc doesn't know why Satan wants her so badly. Luc thinks this is going to be easy...until angelic Gabe arrives, ready to steal Frannie's attentions away from the devil. But why on earth is there all this fuss over a teenaged girl's soul?

The sexual tension in Personal Demons literally pulsates off the page, and while there are scenes of actual encounters, it's more about the longing and the wanting Frannie experiences as she is pulled between Heaven and Hell. But lest it seem trite, this book is really about so much more...what makes a person turn from God in such a religious household? Can a person be "saved" against her will? And what happens when a demon falls in love? Can a demon be "saved"?

There's a lot of back and forth between Frannie and Gabe and Luc, which is probably the only issue I have in this story. I understand the attractions of the two guys but I wanted her to make a choice and stick with it. But the process of Luc realizing he might not be able to complete his mission is well developed, and Frannie's struggles with her own guilt are authentic. This is so much more than just a fun young adult book: it's one that's going to have me thinking about it for a long time to come. I admit it: Personal Demons captured me. Recommended.
 
~taminator40

And Now For a Different Paranormal...

Luce can't remember a time when she didn't see the shadows--dark black moving shapes that come and follow her, usually near water or in dark areas. After years of attempting to "fix" their odd daughter, Luce's parents send her to a northeastern boarding school where the worst happens and Luce ends up involved in a mysterious death. At this point in her seventeen years, it's reform school as the only option, so her parents enroll her in Sword and Cross, which would have been bad enough if the one guy Luce feels she somehow knows hadn't flipped her off on their first meeting. But she can't let that stop her, and her obsession with the beautiful yet distant Daniel grows as the shadows become bolder and death finds her once again.



Fallen by Lauren Kate is different among the young adult paranormals out today in that it deals with creatures not often featured: angels. Specifically, angels who have fallen from heaven for one reason or another, and are cursed. In this case, as the layers are slowly revealed, Daniel's curse becomes clear: he's forced to live forever, meeting and loving Luce every seventeen years...and then watching her die. But something is different this time, and the uptake is that an epic battle between good and evil has been ignited with the change in circumstances.



Fallen has a great premise; it just also has way too slow a beginning in a book of over 400 pages. Told from Luce's point of view, we get little insight into other characters for almost half the book, and Daniel remains enigmatic through 3/4 of the proceedings. Things seem to happen to Luce rather than having Luce take control of any situation, a storyline I hope will change in the next book to come in the series. And the final dawning of Daniel's true status on a perplexed Luce? I'm still scratching my head over just how she came to the conclusion she did because it really wasn't apparent to me how she connected the dots other than thinking about a dream a little bit.



Fallen's flaws are outweighed, however, by the novelty of the situations and the tragedies Luce and her classmates find at the hands of characters they choose to trust. Lots of questions are left unanswered in this installment, so I will have to hope that things are cleared up at least somewhat in the next book. But Fallen is engaging and definitely different than most other young adult paranormals out there. I say enjoy it for what it is and try not to nitpick the main characters too much--at least at this stage. But if Luce fails to understand more and take more control as the series progresses, then the disappointment will be justified. As it is, this is a good beginning and leaves me ready for the next one.

~taminator40