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A review by sdb27
Eternal by Cynthia Leitich Smith
3.0
2.5 stars.
There are some books that start out with promise; a great idea, for example, and an opening chapter that seems to be exciting and hints to an adventure to be hand. However, these books reveal quite quickly that, while there’s nothing immediately wrong with them, their mediocrity cannot be hidden, regardless of how hard they try to mask it with trendy subject material and . Eternal is one of these books where you think it’s okay when you finish it, but the more you think about it afterwards, the more you realize that it actually was very bland and unmemorable.
The vampire genre is a tired one, but at least Eternal manages to make it a little more original by adding the ideas of heaven and guardian angels to the mix. The main character, Miranda, is turned into a vampire within the first few chapters of the book, and her guardian angel Zachary is devastated. He failed in his mission, which was to keep her safe, and he takes it upon himself throughout the rest of the book to save her. From what, I’m not quite sure. Miranda, once she is turned into a vampire, proves that she is more than capable of taking care of herself. I liked that much about her, at least. Regardless of her doubts and her residual “human” feelings—guilt over killing people, remorse, longing for the life she had before, however mundane it was—Miranda sticks up for her beliefs and is smart and cunning enough to evade the wary watch of her maker, a vampire who is reminiscent of Dracula, and who acts as her surrogate father, in a sense.
The world that Smith creates is intriguing enough, but she does not lend it enough detail to really give it any life or color outside serving its purpose as a backdrop for the story. I suppose that, since this is technically a sequel book that takes place in the same world as Tantalize, that I should pick the first book up in order to understand this story better. However, I still think that the lack of detail was poor storytelling on Ms. Smith’s part, and made for a rather monochrome read.
The love story was dull and was about as compelling as drying paint. There is no context given for Zachary’s love for Miranda, besides the fact that he’s her guardian angel and has been watching over her since birth. Thus, we don’t get to see Zachary falling in love with Miranda at all, which takes out half the fun of a good love story. There was no chemistry between the two of them, regardless of the instant attraction that Miranda felt (which had to be mentioned repeatedly, in case the reader forgot) towards Zachary upon seeing him in his human form for the first time.
The Achilles heel of this book was certainly its blandness. It was decidedly average throughout and while it was in no means a bad book or bad writing, it still had an aura of “meh” around it that hindered me liking it too much. That, coupled with the fact that it was a “vampire book” left me underwhelmed by book’s end.
____
For more book reviews, visit my blog The Bookshelf!
There are some books that start out with promise; a great idea, for example, and an opening chapter that seems to be exciting and hints to an adventure to be hand. However, these books reveal quite quickly that, while there’s nothing immediately wrong with them, their mediocrity cannot be hidden, regardless of how hard they try to mask it with trendy subject material and . Eternal is one of these books where you think it’s okay when you finish it, but the more you think about it afterwards, the more you realize that it actually was very bland and unmemorable.
The vampire genre is a tired one, but at least Eternal manages to make it a little more original by adding the ideas of heaven and guardian angels to the mix. The main character, Miranda, is turned into a vampire within the first few chapters of the book, and her guardian angel Zachary is devastated. He failed in his mission, which was to keep her safe, and he takes it upon himself throughout the rest of the book to save her. From what, I’m not quite sure. Miranda, once she is turned into a vampire, proves that she is more than capable of taking care of herself. I liked that much about her, at least. Regardless of her doubts and her residual “human” feelings—guilt over killing people, remorse, longing for the life she had before, however mundane it was—Miranda sticks up for her beliefs and is smart and cunning enough to evade the wary watch of her maker, a vampire who is reminiscent of Dracula, and who acts as her surrogate father, in a sense.
The world that Smith creates is intriguing enough, but she does not lend it enough detail to really give it any life or color outside serving its purpose as a backdrop for the story. I suppose that, since this is technically a sequel book that takes place in the same world as Tantalize, that I should pick the first book up in order to understand this story better. However, I still think that the lack of detail was poor storytelling on Ms. Smith’s part, and made for a rather monochrome read.
The love story was dull and was about as compelling as drying paint. There is no context given for Zachary’s love for Miranda, besides the fact that he’s her guardian angel and has been watching over her since birth. Thus, we don’t get to see Zachary falling in love with Miranda at all, which takes out half the fun of a good love story. There was no chemistry between the two of them, regardless of the instant attraction that Miranda felt (which had to be mentioned repeatedly, in case the reader forgot) towards Zachary upon seeing him in his human form for the first time.
The Achilles heel of this book was certainly its blandness. It was decidedly average throughout and while it was in no means a bad book or bad writing, it still had an aura of “meh” around it that hindered me liking it too much. That, coupled with the fact that it was a “vampire book” left me underwhelmed by book’s end.
____
For more book reviews, visit my blog The Bookshelf!