publisher: Razerbill
pages: 416
source: for review at kiss the book (blog for school librarians)
genre: paranormal YA
content: a couple swear words (like maybe 15), sex off the page, murder off the page
blurb from goodreads:
Haven Moore can't control her visions of a past with a boy called Ethan, and a life in New York that ended in fiery tragedy. In our present, she designs beautiful dresses for her classmates with her best friend Beau. Dressmaking keeps her sane, since she lives with her widowed and heartbroken mother in her tyrannical grandmother's house in Snope City, a tiny town in Tennessee. Then an impossible group of coincidences conspire to force her to flee to New York, to discover who she is, and who she was.
In New York, Haven meets Iain Morrow and is swept into an epic love affair that feels both deeply fated and terribly dangerous. Iain is suspected of murdering a rock star and Haven wonders, could he have murdered her in a past life? She visits the Ouroboros Society and discovers a murky world of reincarnation that stretches across millennia. Haven must discover the secrets hidden in her past lives, and loves¸ before all is lost and the cycle begins again.
me:
I didn't expect to like this book because it was about characters who had been reincarnated. Not a story element I'm a big fan of. However, I was intrigued after reading some blogger reviews so I picked it up anyway. I was surprised that I actually liked the reincarnation in The Eternal Ones. I liked it a lot. It made sense in the context of the story. I bought into it. I thought it was cool.
I also really liked Miller's writing. It was smooth, not clunky at all. Which I loved. This is a long book, but it didn't feel like a long book.
That is until the last third. Where things just got too ridiculous for my tastes. Because though I liked the reincarnation stuff in the book, there were two other things that bothered me: 1) Haven 2) Iain.
*****SLIGHT SPOILERS FOLLOW*****
Haven was cool to begin with. I liked her--until she got annoying. One moment she loves and trusts Iain. The next moment she loves and distrusts Iain. Sure, go back and forth three times (at the most!) but beyond that and it is annoying. Especially since whenever she doubted Iain it was because she was trusting someone she knew even less. Annoying.
Though even more annoying is when she walks into Devil's clutches. Stupid girl.
As for Iain, how many lives has he known Haven for? Did he really believe that she'd be okay with half truths and lies? Did Iain expect she'd wait meekly at home because he said to trust that he knew best? Why is he surprised when Haven goes out to try to find the truth? This is the same woman he's always known for thousands of years and yet he obviously doesn't know her well.
Iain's reasoning for not telling Haven the truth didn't make sense to me. He would've avoided half of the problems they ran into if he'd explained what was going on. Having Haven bumble along in ignorance was a whole lot more dangerous than telling her about the OC.
*****SLIGHT SPOILERS OVER*****
I was also disappointed that Iain and Haven weren't together more. I would've loved it if instead of working apart (and against) each other for most of the book, after an initial hesitation on Haven's part, they would've worked together to figure out what was going on. They have an epic love story that spans through generations, yet I didn't really see any of that love myself. I'm just relying on past lives to believe in it and I felt cheated.
So because of the lack of communication between these two (supposedly in-love) protags, the ending fell apart for me. Which makes me sad because I really enjoyed the first part of the book.
No comments:
Post a Comment