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  

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