Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

Unearthly

by Cynthia Hand

Synopsis (courtesy of 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 it 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 deciet, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny?

Review:

The premise of the book was a little confusing – with these angel half-breeds and quarter-angel descendents having a set job to do as their destiny, at some point during their early years (well that’s what it seemed like for the characters involved). Granted, the storyline put an interesting twist on the hot paranormal books focusing on angels, I found it to be not a very enticing or engaging read. I will, however, say that it was nice to have a book involving angels and their offspring, and NOT have references to nephilim come up really.

I felt there was a lack of character development in Clara and Christian, though we do learn a lot about Tucker as the story progresses. And Clara’s mom – her character bugged the heck out of me with her being all “oh sweetie, you have to figure it out on your own, all in good time,” even though her mom should be the one helping her through this transition into her powers and foretold destiny, and not her friend Angela.

Another aspect of the book that I did not appreciate all that much was how much of a cliffhanger the end of the book leaves the reader. The ending really does not resolve much of anything, but rather poses and creates more questions and dilemmas than concluding or solving the issues already posed in the book. For instance, Chrisitian and his gig, Clara and her destined love-or-chosen love, and Angela & her Italian bf & what Angela’s been learning in Italy.

With the writing style being very basic and uncomplicated, as well as very little sexual tensions or adult type of situations actually being addressed in the book, I think this would be an alright book for pre-teen, young YA readers to read as a paranormal, specifically angel-topic supernatural novel to read, to enter into the genre of YA paranormal.

 


Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars