Thursday, August 4, 2011

Unearthly by Cynthia Hand


        
Unearthly
(Unearthly #1)
by Cynthia Hand
Summary from Goodreads:

"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."
Rating:

A surprisingly gripping book! 

This is the first angel book I’ve read. I was kind of skeptical about reading books with angel themes since I’ve heard a lot of negative feedback towards the earlier books written with this kind of genre. Fortunately, Unearthly did not disappoint me. 

I admire the way the author was able to make this book an easy read. It’s still engaging and a total page-turner but isn’t hard to understand and you can effortlessly grasp on what’s happening. 

I loved the development of the Clara-Tucker-Christian love triangle. Finally, a book that gives the characters actual romance development, and not the swoon over at first sight kind of love. It’s nice to see that their relationships showed tangible maturity. At this point, I am definitely Team Tucker. 

I like that this book has shown a balance between reality and otherworldly. You get a fair share of Clara’s life as a normal teen dealing with school and boys, and then you get Clara’s unearthly side where she needs to fulfill her purpose as an angel-blood. The right mix of it has made this book a really interesting read. 

The only thing that bothered me was the ending. Not that it’s an awful ending, it’s just not how I expected it to be and I’ve always been sore of being left with another mystery to solve and being left confused. Unearthly ended with more questions than answers which usually pisses me off, but this book has given me a good perspective of how things are going and showing me how vast this world Clara is still on the verge of discovering that I totally empathize with her, which has led me to be more patient and eager to read the next book.