Saturday 3 March 2012

[REVIEW] Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

Published: January 2011
Publisher: HarperTeen
Agee Group: Young Adults
Series: Unearthly #1
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 is a moving tale of love and fate, and the struggle between following the rules and following your heart. (From Goodreads)

Unearthly is first a book about angels, yet again. 

In this book though, every angel gets a purpose that they recieve through visions later on in their adolescent life. Clara is a girl with a quarter angel blood and at the beginning of the book, she starts to recieve her purpose. Clara's mother is half angel blood and immediately decides after listening to Clara's brief vision, that they need to move to the location of her purpose, that being Wyoming. When they first get to Wyoming, Clara's glory starts to show in her hair. Glory is essentially when someone of angel blood starts to show their angelic light and it also makes those without angel blood become shocked, unable to speak. Because of this, Clara is forced to die her hair an unpleasent carrot orange. Later on in the story, as the visions become more frequent, Clara recognizes what her purpose is, that she has to save Christian Prescott, the official hottie of school. That starts Clara's attempts at trying to become his girlfriend although he already has one, and completing her purpose. 

The one thing that I absolutly loved about this book was that I didn't know which boy she was going to end up with. There's Christian and someone else, who I won't say because that sort of spoils the story. Usually the guy that the main character loves is pretty obvious but in this story, you think it's one person but no, it's the other then it switches all over again. It definitely will keep you on the edge and the pages turning until you get to the last page.

I also really like surprises in the books I read because usually I figure out what the surprises are going to be as well but i guess I was so caught up in the romance of this story that I didn't even pay attention and expect the surprise. 

The setting isn't explained with much depth and the focus is more on dialogues. 

The one thing I found bad about this book was the some of the characters weren't developed fully until they showed up later. A character would appear with a brief description of who they are and then leave. Later they would reappear and have more description but not fully. I guess what i'm trying to say is that everytime a minor character appears, you learn more about them. I don't like describing characters and it could just be me who feels that way. 

The main plot of this book is also throughout the story but often is forgotten in the main characters social and romance problems. Often it's problem problem, back to the purpose, problem problem, and the purpose, problem again and then new vison. There are alot of sub plots in this story. That being said, this is probably my favourite new series and i absolutely cannot wait for the new sequel! Go read it if you haven't!!!




5/5!
(originally posted in the TPL Word Out program)

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