Review: Boundless

BOUNDLESS
Unearthly #3
Cynthia Hand
Paranormal Young Adult
438 pages
Available Now
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
The past few years have held more surprises than part-angel Clara Gardner could ever have anticipated. Yet from the dizzying highs of first love, to the agonizing low of losing someone close to her, the one thing she can no longer deny is that she was never meant to live a normal life.

Since discovering the special role she plays among the other angel-bloods, Clara has been determined to protect Tucker Avery from the evil that follows her . . . even if it means breaking both their hearts. Leaving town seems like the best option, so she’s headed back to California - and so is Christian Prescott, the irresistible boy from the vision that started her on this journey in the first place.

As Clara makes her way in a world that is frighteningly new, she discovers that the fallen angel who attacked her is watching her every move. And he’s not the only one. . . . With the battle against the Black Wings looming, Clara knows she must finally fulfill her destiny. But it won’t come without sacrifices and betrayal.

MY THOUGHTS
Boundless is a book we open with equal parts eager anticipation and nervous trepidation, our desire to know how things end for Clara, Tucker and Christian combining with our fear at the fact that these pages are the last we’ll get to spend with them to guarantee we’re on edge chapter to chapter. Not only are our nerves alight, crackling and jumping with every page as we wonder when the foreshadowed darkness of the prologue will catch up to us in real time, but our emotions are raw, the pain of Tucker’s noticeable absence something compounded by every lonely beat of our ravaged hearts. Luckily for us though, we have a protagonist in Clara who stands strong even as our own knees threaten to buckle, and she remains a pillar of strength until the very end.

Clara is the type of heroine those of us who read a great deal of young adult literature crave; someone who doesn’t cave under enormous emotional and physical pressure or seek to play games with the young men in her life. Though things are definitively over with Tucker from page one of this final installment, Clara never attempts to numb her obvious pain by accepting the love and affection Christian repeatedly offers, instead she gives herself time to come to terms with the dissolution of one relationship before immediately throwing herself into the complexities of another. While she sorts through the hurt and confusion she also never once leads Christian on or makes promises to him she’s not sure she can keep, she simply reminds him again and again how much his friendship means and what an important figure he is in her life even if he's not in the role he might wish.

Christian, for his part, handles the emotional fragility between he and Clara with equal grace, never pushing her to make a decision or admit feelings for him she’s not capable of voicing just yet, and our hearts hurt for him all the more for the respect he shows her. It would be far easier for us to exult in our love for Tucker and our desire for Clara to choose him were Christian to rage and fight and be cruel, but his quiet acceptance even as his hope that things will eventually change nearly undo us. Tucker’s role in this last book is brief but memorable, his clear hurt when Clara returns home from Stanford adding precariously perched weights to our already unstable emotional pile–threatening to topple everything and leave us reeling–but still our love for him never wavers, and we can’t help but wish for an ending that sees happiness spread far and wide for all three of them.

One complaint with this book is with regard to a bevy of unanswered questions we’re left with by the time we close the back cover, something we don’t worry about in the moments after finishing when our euphoria (or disappointment, depending on which way one is romantically leaning) over the resolution of things between Clara, Tucker, and Christian has us in its grip, but once we’ve had ample time to think, we realize not much besides their relationship was actually resolved. Questions still abound as to what the villain was actually trying to accomplish, and how exactly the triplares were going to assist in that endeavor, and the final battle with him lasted but moments. Granted, this story has always been more focused on Clara and the other angel-bloods individual purposes rather than the larger heaven vs. hell fight, but it remains unclear at the end just what the villain was fighting for, specifically. Despite those questions, Boundless is still a thrilling and emotionally intense read, and I’m greatly looking forward to what Ms. Hand will move onto next.

Rating: 4/5

Mini Reviews: HarperTeen Impulse Titles

BREATHLESS
Firelight #3.5
Sophie Jordan
Paranormal Young Adult
Novella (ebook only)
HarperTeen Impulse
Available now
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
For Az, it's supposed to be a fun summer vacation with her family. Nothing complicated. Just a quick trip to test the waters as she prepares for a year on her own. That all changes when she rescues a drowning girl and meets Tate—the most gorgeous human boy she's ever seen. Tate throws her heart, her plans, and her life into upheaval, but the closer she gets to him, the harder it is to hide the secret of what she is. With no hope for a future together, the last thing that can ever happen . . . is love.

MY THOUGHTS
Breathless is a quick jaunt into the Firelight world, Jacinda’s friend Az taking center stage as Ms. Jordan delights with a sweet and sexy forbidden romance. Though the setup–a female draki and a human boy–is essentially the same as what we're given in Firelight, Ms. Jordan does a really nice job of creating a distinctly different feel to Az’s story in just a hundred short pages. The same threat of discovery is present, but Az is far more skittish and fearful than Jacinda ever was, the recklessness replaced with an understandable caution that’s suddenly called into question as she develops feelings for Tate.

The romance of course moves forward quickly given the shorter page length, however the relationship still has a nice complexity, and there’s a palpable tension between Az and Tate thanks to the heavy weight of the secrets that lie between them. Breathless concludes perfectly, things left neither up in the air nor wrapped up neatly as we’re left looking forward to a future bright with possibility.

Rating: 4/5

CRUISIN'
Sarah Mlynowski
Paranormal Young Adult
Short Story (ebook only)
HarperTeen Impulse
Available now
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Kristin is ready to take the next step. . . . The only problem is she hasn't found the right guy to take it with her. That's why she agreed to go on the ominously named Cruise to Nowhere with her best friend, Liz. There are plenty of cute guys on the ship to choose from if only Kristin can work up the nerve—and stop worrying about the reports in the tabloids that passengers on cruises have been mysteriously disappearing and that someone suspects it has to do with . . . vampires.

MY THOUGHTS
Cruisin’ is a fun little short story by Ms. Mylanowski that delivers a touch of unpredictability we can’t help but appreciate. Kristin’s search for the perfect guy to assist her in putting her first time behind her in spectacularly anonymous fashion is superficially entertaining (if a touch irritating at times given her and best friend Liz’s utter fixation on the task at hand), but the final few pages bring a huge smile to our faces and force us to look back through the story with very different eyes than the ones with which we started.

Rating: 3.5/5
 

STUPID PERFECT WORLD
Scott Westerfeld
Young Adult
Novella (ebook only)
HarperTeen Impulse
Available now
Received from publisher for review 

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
In this future-set novella by bestselling author Scott Westerfeld, Kieran Black lives in a "perfect" world. Disease and starvation have been eradicated, sleep is unnecessary, and it takes no time at all to go from the Bahamas to the moon. But now Kieran has to take Scarcity, a class about how people lived in the bad old days. And as if sitting through an hour of Scarcity every day wasn't depressing enough, it's final projects time. Each student must choose some form of ancient hardship to experience for two whole weeks. Kieran chooses having to sleep eight hours a night, which doesn't seem too annoying.

Maria Borsotti has never thought much of Kieran, but she decides to take pity on him and help him out with his project. Soon, Kieran is sleeping and having vivid dreams, while Maria, whose Scarcity project is to give up all teenage hormone regulation, is experiencing emotions she never knew she had. As their assignments draw them closer together, they begin to wonder if the olden days weren't so bad. Maybe something has been missing from their perfect lives after all?

MY THOUGHTS
Stupid Perfect World gives us an intriguing look at a far-distant future, one where the world is not torn apart or ravaged with humanity on the brink of extinction, but rather one where life is thriving thanks to numerous genetic and technological advancements. In one particular high school class all the advancements are rendered useless however, and students must experience what life was like in the world we know today, complete with illnesses, hormones, and an inability to teleport anywhere we need to go. We can't help but laugh as the students bemoan the class as a whole, our smile growing larger as we follow two students in particular, Maria and Kieran, as they experience hormones (Maria) and sleep (Kieran) for the very first time. Stupid Perfect World is an extraordinarily cute and quick read with the barest touch of romance that leaves a pleasant flush on our skin by the time we reach the final page.

Rating: 4/5
 

RADIANT
Unearthly #2.5
Cynthia Hand
Paranormal Young Adult
Novella (ebook only)
HarperTeen Impulse
Available Now
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Clara is desperate to get away—from the memories that haunt her in Wyoming and the visions of a future she isn't ready to face—and spending the summer in Italy with her best friend, Angela, should be the perfect escape. . . .

For as long as she can remember, Angela has been told that love is dangerous, that she must always guard her heart. But when she met a mysterious guy in Italy two years ago she was determined to be with him, no matter the costs. Now she must decide whether she can trust Clara with her secret, or if telling her the truth will risk everything she cares about. 

MY THOUGHTS
Radiant is a spectacular teaser for Boundless, reminding us of a few key events from Hallowed as we catch up with Clara and Angela in Rome, while at the same time filling in a few of the blanks in Angela's history that have lingered as Clara's many and varied problems have taken precedence in the series. We get the perfect quick glimpse at Angela both through first person narration and through Clara's eyes as the point of view alternates between them, privy to intimate heartbreak as Angela relives a painful episode from her past as well as a prominent sense of foreboding thanks to our time with Clara, the two combining to have our hearts pounding with anticipation for whatever is in store for our two soon-to-be college freshman.

The story ends with a final parting line that defines the word foreshadowing, leaving us jittery with nerves and breathless with want to know what exactly Clara means with her concluding words, and we stare longingly at our calendars upon finishing, willing the countdown to Boundless to pass just a little bit faster.

Rating: 4.5/5  

Things of Awesome: December Edition

Hey everyone!

I've done a couple posts here and there pulling together the few bits of bookish news that have either been sent to me or that I've stumbled upon, and I've decided I'm going to try and turn it into a mini-feature here on the blog. I'm going to attempt to do a post the first Sunday of each month, but sometimes I make plans like this and then manage to catch a rather brutal strain of laziness, something that results in the death of any sort of follow through. I love me. You'll know this has happened if you see this feature once more in January and then never again ;-) For now though, I've got some fun things to share with you, some of which you may already be aware because I'm often late to the party, but some you may not so I'm going to post all I know anyway!

1. HARPERTEEN IMPULSE

From their press release:

HarperCollins Publishers announced today (November 26th) the launch of HarperTeen Impulse, a digital imprint focusing on Young Adult short stories and novellas. The new imprint will publish short-form works from new and established authors, providing original and exciting new teen ebooks across a wide variety of genres.

HarperTeen Impulse will publish between one and four titles a month, all of which will go on sale the first Tuesday of that month, branded “Impulse Tuesday.” Impulse titles will benefit from dedicated program marketing, including extensive social media outreach, monthly newsletters, cross-promotion in HarperTeen print books, and strategic sales promotions.

Who else is excited about this? HarperTeen never fails to have an absolutely amazing lineup of books throughout the year, and the fact that we're going to be getting even more from them each month with this new imprint is enough to have me embarrassing myself by doing a happy dance in my living room despite the threat of neighbors seeing me through our curtain-less windows. I don't even care if they do though because I'm going to get to read books like the below starting this Tuesday, December 4th:

BREATHLESS by Sophie Jordan

Sophie Jordan's breathtaking digital original novella set in the world of Firelight.

For Az, it's supposed to be a fun summer vacation with her family. Nothing complicated. Just a quick trip to test the waters as she prepares for a year on her own. That all changes when she rescues a drowning girl and meets Tate—the most gorgeous human boy she's ever seen. Tate throws her heart, her plans, and her life into upheaval, but the closer she gets to him, the harder it is to hide the secret of what she is. With no hope for a future together, the last thing that can ever happen . . . is love.

This stand-alone digital original is perfect for those new to the Firelight series as well as veteran fans.

RADIANT by Cynthia Hand

From New York Times bestselling author Cynthia Hand comes a riveting original novella (available only as an ebook) set in the world of the Unearthly series.

Clara is desperate to get away—from the memories that haunt her in Wyoming and the visions of a future she isn't ready to face—and spending the summer in Italy with her best friend, Angela, should be the perfect escape. . . .

For as long as she can remember, Angela has been told that love is dangerous, that she must always guard her heart. But when she met a mysterious guy in Italy two years ago she was determined to be with him, no matter the costs. Now she must decide whether she can trust Clara with her secret, or if telling her the truth will risk everything she cares about.

Alternating between Angela and Clara's perspectives, Radiant chronicles the unforgettable summer that will test the bounds of their friendship and change their lives forever.

Also releasing December 4th:
STUPID PERFECT WORLD by Scott Westerfeld
CRUISIN' by Sarah Mlynowski

Upcoming Impulse titles include:
THE PRINCE by Kiera Cass
TAGS by Walter Dean Myers
ONE DAY MORE by Aprilynne Pike.

More information on what you can expect from HarperTeen's new imprint can be found here.

2. SIMON TEEN'S 31 DAYS OF GIVEAWAYS

Thank you SimonTEEN! *commences finger crossing for every day of December*

3.  READ EVERY DAY

The awesome people over at Scholastic have launched a holiday campaign called Read Every Day. For every Storia ebook purchased, Scholastic will donate a book to a child in need, with special attention paid to those kids who lost their home libraries in Hurricane Sandy. You can find all the details HERE.

4. SOURCEBOOKS 25 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

From Sourcebooks:

Get daily eBook deals delivered straight to your inbox and be entered for a chance to win eBooks, candy, print books, and an eReader for you—and one for a friend or family member!

Sourcebooks is feeling the spirit of the holiday season and we want to share it with you! We’re running our biggest promotion yet—daily discounts on our most popular eBooks—throughout the month of December. If you sign up to receive our daily email notifications, you’ll automatically be entered to win two eReaders: one for you, and one for a friend or family member. In addition, we’ll also be giving away more fun prizes every single week, from candy to gift baskets to books. Sign up today!

5. SCARLET TRILOGY

One of my favorite reads this year was SCARLET by A.C. Gaughen (if you haven't read it, I HIGHLY recommend picking it up). It was another one of those unexpectedly amazing stories where I immediately fell in love with the characters upon meeting them. As per usual, when I finished I ran to the internet to find any information I could with regards to a sequel given events were left fairly open-ended, though not frustratingly so. Imagine my anxiety when I discovered there was no information to be had. No mention of a sequel anywhere. *sobs in remembrance*

Well, friends, Friday was my lucky day. On Friday, A.C. announced on her blog some very, very exciting news. As you may have guessed from the above #5 title, SCARLET is not simply going to have one sequel, but two. YES! You can read all the details on A.C.'s blog here, and she is running a couple of giveaways to celebrate as well, so be sure and check them out.

Review: Hallowed

HALLOWED (Unearthly #2)
Cynthia Hand
Paranormal Young Adult
416 pages
HarperTeen
Available January 17th
Received from NetGalley for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
For months Clara Gardner trained to face the fire from her visions, but she wasn’t prepared for the choice she had to make that day. And in the aftermath, she discovered that nothing about being part angel is as straightforward as she thought.

Now, torn between her love for Tucker and her complicated feelings about the roles she and Christian seem destined to play in a world that is both dangerous and beautiful, Clara struggles with a shocking revelation: Someone she loves will die in a matter of months. With her future uncertain, the only thing Clara knows for sure is that the fire was just the beginning.

MY THOUGHTS
Hallowed is the type of book we can't wait to start reading, yet our hands remain frozen at our sides and we find we're unable to force them to break the spine knowing that what awaits us will not be a lighthearted jaunt full of whimsy and achingly adorable romance. Instead, we know darkness and pain will most likely be waiting to greet us when we finally work up the courage to open the front cover, delving us deeper into the complex world of the angel-bloods and challenging both us and our beloved characters in ways that are uncomfortable but so very poignant and moving at the same time. Ms. Hand certainly has no interest in leading us along the path of least resistance, throwing down the gauntlet in this second installment and waiting to see if we’ll be strong enough to pick it up and walk alongside Clara, Tucker, and Christian as times get tougher.

A joy to read about, Clara reminds us in this tale of all the reasons why we fell in love with her in Unearthly, continuing to show us her ability to create her own light amidst the stifling darkness of the unknown world she is an intrinsic part of when no one else, not even her own mother, will help her find her way. Her love for Tucker consists of both sweetness and shadows, her seemingly unshakeable confidence that who she is going to be with is going to be her choice–and hers alone–paired in this tale with a nagging doubt that her purpose and her role as an angel-blood might prove to be the blade that slices her free will to ribbons. While she hates the idea that her life isn’t entirely of her own making, she never rages against it or lashes out at those around her at the injustice of it all, instead she quietly mourns the life she might have had were circumstances a bit different, and puts on her game face before she tackles what’s thrown her way with verve.

The love triangle is crafted in a painfully stunning way, the case for both Christian and Tucker hauntingly laid out for us as we feel Clara’s confusion and distress when she looks at them both. What sets this love triangle apart from some of its more frustrating counterparts is that Clara is not one to waffle, never sitting back and studying her feelings for both young men or weighing the pros and cons of each to help her reach a decision. Instead, she’s already chosen, and her choice is Tucker. She chooses to love him with everything she has despite Christian’s presence in her life, so her struggle then becomes not one of dual attraction, but one of choice versus duty, want versus greater purpose, and personal will versus divine will. She wants a life with Tucker, but her angel-blood draw to Christian is too powerful to simply ignore, and as a result we all find ourselves in a twisting, churning emotional maelstrom from which there’s no way to walk away unscathed.

Despite this being the second book in the series, we are not simply sucked into the story in the middle of events and made into pack mules forced to bear the weight of numerous unanswered questions carried over from book one even as new ones are sprung on us, but rather we are given many of the answers we seek by the end to help ease our mental burden even as the heavy presence of our emotional one settles down on our shoulders. Ms. Hand knows just how to appease us enough that we don’t end this installment with a sense of emptiness at having merely been prepped for the following book, but she keeps enough out of reach to have us salivating for book three now that we’ve had a little taste of enlightenment.

Rating: 4/5

Review: Unearthly

UNEARTHLY (Unearthly #1)
Cynthia Hand
Paranormal Young Adult
448 pages
Harper Teen
Available January 4th
Received from publisher via NetGalley for review

THE STORY
Finally. Clara has a purpose. The reason she was put on earth and her destiny as an angel blood. She's supposed to save a boy from a forest fire, and with each recurrence of the vision, she gets one more little detail that will lead her to this boy and the completion of her of her preordained task.

Those few vital details lead Clara, her mother, and her brother to Jackson Hole, where a new house and a new life await, and the boy from her visions resides. His name is Christian Prescott, and Clara watches him from afar at school in the hopes of learning something that will help her better understand what she's been seeing.

The fire season in Jackson Hole is creeping ever closer, and Clara's life gets more and more complicated as she struggles with her ability to fly, juggles feelings for both Christian and surprisingly Tucker, her friend's brother, all the while learning there are aspects of being an angel blood she doesn't truly understand. While she originally thought her purpose was clear, she's quickly realizing it's not as straightforward as it once seemed, and it's leading her toward a decision she's not sure she's strong enough to make.

MY THOUGHTS
Unearthly is a welcome addition to the group of paranormal novels dealing with angel lore, one that beautifully blends normal with supernatural, drama with humor, and the crushing weight of duty with the intense desire to refuse dictation and shake loose the bonds of expectation. We are instantly swept up in Clara's world, her excitement and longing to fulfill her purpose creating an echoing yearning in us as we experience her visions with her, searching and waiting for any small clue that might advance her toward her goal. As we attempt to decipher the minute differences vision to vision, we find that normalcy and real life have made their way through the preternatural destiny and into prominence, leaving us with a prevalent sense of wonder as to how the two halves of Clara's life will fuse together, and what overall effect it will have on her divine purpose.

Gloriously average despite her paranormal heritage, Clara is a strong protagonist, one who strives to do everything that's asked of her but endearingly stumbles along her path to do so. Her circumstances are so very easy to relate to – the need to prove herself worthy and make her family proud, the sharp sting of rejection at the hands of a popular boy, and the dawning realization that shades of gray and vivid color are starting to replace the simplicity of the black and white of her life prior to coming to Jackson Hole. Though we may not all be close in age to Clara, she's written in such a way we find ourselves instantly transported back to a time when awkwardness and insecurity were more dominant factors in our lives, linking us to Clara on a variety of levels. Her hurt and pain are ours when she's suffering, just as our faces burn hot with anger and embarrassment one moment and our hearts flutter and palpitate in time to hers the next. Clara's reactions to different events are completely understandable, her confusion and distress with regard to the secrets her mother refuses to share are palpable, and her overwhelming sadness when the tough decisions must be made causes our breathing to quicken and our throats to constrict.

Much of the story focuses on the connection between Clara and Christian, but the way in which it's handled is a refreshing reprieve from the instant attraction of so many teenage relationships in fiction. Her interest stems from an innate curiosity of the boy whom she's supposed to save, and though she certainly isn't immune to his looks or charm, those aren't the aspects that fascinate her most. Because she's distracted by the details of her purpose, she remains oblivious to the attentions of Tucker, and their relationship is characterized by a weighted teasing and one-sided tension that makes our cheeks hurt as we smile hugely at her adorable naivete. Added to this unusual and unexpected love triangle is a story which seems fairly straightforward, but with each page comes a new piece of information that causes a subtle shift in our understanding. The dynamics of the angel blood world are fare more elaborate than either Clara or we assumed initially, and the mysteries of Clara's mom are numerous and weighty in their significance. It's an absolute pleasure to read as the tunnel-vision concerning her purpose begins to expand, growing to encompass the complications and drama that come from learning about and experiencing life.

This story is spectacularly striated, a delectable combination of layers rich in detail and saturated with mystery leaving our mouths watering for more as each new tier of sumptuous complexity is revealed. Ms. Hand is like the most gifted of sculptors, slowly and methodically creating until we see that the story is only just beginning to take shape, the multiple facets still indistinguishable at the conclusion ensuring our undivided attention moving forward as the remaining elements are shaped and carved, and the final product is unveiled.

Rating: 4.5/5