After a long time, finally I finished the book! With the hectic test reviews and other procrastinations, it took me a week to finish this one.
UNEARTHLY - Cynthia Hand
Pages: 435
Publisher: HarperTeen
Source: Netgalley
Sypnosis 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?
REVIEW
Why was that I always smile while reading this? Why is that I always stayed up late with this book? Why is that I want to make the characters real people. Why is that this is a great novel?
Clara is an angel-blood. And all angel-bloods have purpose in life. They have visions of scenes that serves clues about their purpose. Her purpose: to save a boy. Personally, I will say that the development of the characters in Unearthly is pretty weak. There are not many differences from their characteristics in the beginning and in end. But despite the vague developments, I really really feel the characters as real life people. They act logically people. One of the problems in modern YA now is that characters seems to act illogical with their situations. If you are scared in real life would you have the appetite to kiss, snog till end? Of course you’re scared and your mind is focused on how to overcome fear. But in Unearthly, characters acts like human. They decide like real people. They don’t snog if they are about to die.
Jackson, Wyoming=Heaven. When I first read the book, I don’t have any background on how Wyoming looks like since I’m not an American. But then, I searched it in the web and god, that’s a very nice, gorgeous place. Considering the amount of green and whites. The snow and trees. The author takes us, together with her characters, in few places in Jackson. The hill where they do skiing. The lake that sparkles when the sun rises. The woods that almost feel like Narnia. It’s a very interesting place to set the novel in.
When it comes to style of writing, I like Cynthia Hand’s. She writes like a teen. She knows how teenagers acts. You might say, “of course, because the protagonists is a teenager.” Well, not all authors can write like a teenager. Some characters sound like a 35 years old man because of the writing. In Hand’s style, you feel like your talking to a teen like you. (If you’re a teen, btw.)
I really like the novel but the ending didn’t convince me. There is this BIG revelation, supposed to be. But with that BIG thing, the ending got tangled. It doesn’t make sense anymore. If the book expects the readers to be awe by the BIG revelation maybe for other it worked but for me it didn’t. The actions are good. You can feel the tense rising up but the story and how all ends is bad. If the ending will be different, I think that will be a remarkable one.
To conclude, Unearthly is a very good novel. One of those “real-teen” books. Although it doesn’t teach so much lessons, it instead brings you to the world where you feel the characters like your friend; like you knew them. I recommend this book to everyone.
For my stared reviews, please visit my goodreads review
HERE.
