Title: Eternal Starling
Author: Angela Corbett
Publisher: Pendrell Publishing
Release Date: December 6, 2011
Pages: 320 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website
A love so strong, even eternity can’t separate them.
Evie Starling has lived a relatively uneventful life hanging out with friends, gossiping about boys, and driving her 1966 Mustang. All of that changes when she moves to Gunnison, Colorado, to start college and meets two mysterious men.
For centuries, Alex Night and Emil Stone have yearned for Evie—but they each have their own reasons for wanting to be with her. When both men claim to be her soul mate and tell her about an unbelievable past, Evie learns that she’s not the person she thought she was. Soon, Evie finds herself in the middle of an age-old battle between the Amaranthine Society—the soul protectors, and the Daevos Resistance—the soul destroyers. With a past she doesn’t understand, and a future rife with danger, Evie has to decide who she can trust. But Alex and Emil aren’t the only ones who want Evie, and her soul is about to become the rope in an eternal tug-of-war.
"Alex had just met me. Why would he care if I went careening off a cliff?" -Eternal Starling, 3% mark on my Kindle
That was a warning. After all, if Evie thinks there is something wrong with another having the common decency to not want a person to go careening off a cliff, there may be something wrong with her. Did I listen to that warning? Not for a second, and did I ever pay for it! My violent dislike of love triangles aside, I thought Eternal Starling was going to be a good book, but its half-awesome, half-infuriating heroine, unlikable love interests, badly done love triangle, and slow-moving plot killed it for me.
Half the time, I liked Evie. She took little to no bull from her boyfriends and she had so much backbone that I wanted to ask her to donate some of it to YA heroines in need. If only we could get the truly fantastic girls to share the wealth, YA would be a better genre for all! But I'm derailing myself. The other half of the time, I could not stand her. In addition to the quote at the beginning of the review, she lets her hormones control her brain--and she admits to it. It does not make me like her any more when she admits to it. It just makes me think she's even dumber.
Let's say it together: reincarnation does not excuse insta-love even if they knew each other in a past life. It is not an excuse to skip over development either. Here, we get not one, but two cases of insta-love, and I wondered for a minute if Anthony Sullivan and his pitchman ways had anything to do with this book. This story is driven by the love triangle (after all, most of what you see in the jacket copy is only just getting hinted at around the halfway mark) and giving it no development is a death sentence. Why does Evie have two soul mates when people are only supposed to have one? Hell if I know and hell if the book has an answer.
Both of her love interests can go jump in a pit of vipers. Alex constantly criticizes Evie's independent spirit, which led to me literally shouting expletives at my Kindle, and he always found a way to rub me wrong. Emil was not as offensive to the senses, but his mushy, annoying attitude got on my nerves. Some of the things he said to her and the way he kept just as much from Evie as Alex did is what sentences him to the pit. I get more excited watching my two inside cats attack than reading about Emil and Alex fighting over Evie. (And really, my cats are hardly fighting; the kitten jumps on our overweight cat and the two run around the house hissing at one another.)
My main reason for hating them both? When Evie uses her backbone to stand up to her, they shut her down almost every time. What the hell?! I love backbones, but when they are chained down by other people like Evie's is constantly, it's almost preferable to have a spineless heroine! Between seeing a heroine rarely stand up for herself and then seeing one stand up for herself but be told to sit back down and shut up, I can't decide which one I dislike more.
When the plot finally steps in, the greater antagonist's motives are poorly explained. I get why the Amaranthine Society tries to help soul mates, but what does the Daevos Resistance get out of breaking them up? The explanation the book offered (they're evil and building an army) was poor. They're never explored any deeper than "they're evil" and the flat picture it paints takes away a lot of the tension. I did like the idea of the two groups, but they're so shallowly covered that they aren't much good. The specific antagonist, a Daevos Clan, isn't much better.
And I suppose this teaches me not to listen to one particular book blogger. They may be popular and many people may love them (to be fair, this blogger really is a sweet person), but their reviews never match up with my tastes and the books they tend to love the most are the ones I hate the most. Remember, everyone: make sure the people you rely on for book reviews have tastes that match yours in some way. Otherwise, you end up like me, buying books you hate because someone whose tastes are unlike yours said it was awesome.
1 star!
What am I reading next?: A Temptation of Angels by Michelle Zink
Author: Angela Corbett
Publisher: Pendrell Publishing
Release Date: December 6, 2011
Pages: 320 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website
A love so strong, even eternity can’t separate them.Evie Starling has lived a relatively uneventful life hanging out with friends, gossiping about boys, and driving her 1966 Mustang. All of that changes when she moves to Gunnison, Colorado, to start college and meets two mysterious men.
For centuries, Alex Night and Emil Stone have yearned for Evie—but they each have their own reasons for wanting to be with her. When both men claim to be her soul mate and tell her about an unbelievable past, Evie learns that she’s not the person she thought she was. Soon, Evie finds herself in the middle of an age-old battle between the Amaranthine Society—the soul protectors, and the Daevos Resistance—the soul destroyers. With a past she doesn’t understand, and a future rife with danger, Evie has to decide who she can trust. But Alex and Emil aren’t the only ones who want Evie, and her soul is about to become the rope in an eternal tug-of-war.
Review:
"Alex had just met me. Why would he care if I went careening off a cliff?" -Eternal Starling, 3% mark on my Kindle
That was a warning. After all, if Evie thinks there is something wrong with another having the common decency to not want a person to go careening off a cliff, there may be something wrong with her. Did I listen to that warning? Not for a second, and did I ever pay for it! My violent dislike of love triangles aside, I thought Eternal Starling was going to be a good book, but its half-awesome, half-infuriating heroine, unlikable love interests, badly done love triangle, and slow-moving plot killed it for me.
Half the time, I liked Evie. She took little to no bull from her boyfriends and she had so much backbone that I wanted to ask her to donate some of it to YA heroines in need. If only we could get the truly fantastic girls to share the wealth, YA would be a better genre for all! But I'm derailing myself. The other half of the time, I could not stand her. In addition to the quote at the beginning of the review, she lets her hormones control her brain--and she admits to it. It does not make me like her any more when she admits to it. It just makes me think she's even dumber.
Let's say it together: reincarnation does not excuse insta-love even if they knew each other in a past life. It is not an excuse to skip over development either. Here, we get not one, but two cases of insta-love, and I wondered for a minute if Anthony Sullivan and his pitchman ways had anything to do with this book. This story is driven by the love triangle (after all, most of what you see in the jacket copy is only just getting hinted at around the halfway mark) and giving it no development is a death sentence. Why does Evie have two soul mates when people are only supposed to have one? Hell if I know and hell if the book has an answer.
Both of her love interests can go jump in a pit of vipers. Alex constantly criticizes Evie's independent spirit, which led to me literally shouting expletives at my Kindle, and he always found a way to rub me wrong. Emil was not as offensive to the senses, but his mushy, annoying attitude got on my nerves. Some of the things he said to her and the way he kept just as much from Evie as Alex did is what sentences him to the pit. I get more excited watching my two inside cats attack than reading about Emil and Alex fighting over Evie. (And really, my cats are hardly fighting; the kitten jumps on our overweight cat and the two run around the house hissing at one another.)
My main reason for hating them both? When Evie uses her backbone to stand up to her, they shut her down almost every time. What the hell?! I love backbones, but when they are chained down by other people like Evie's is constantly, it's almost preferable to have a spineless heroine! Between seeing a heroine rarely stand up for herself and then seeing one stand up for herself but be told to sit back down and shut up, I can't decide which one I dislike more.
When the plot finally steps in, the greater antagonist's motives are poorly explained. I get why the Amaranthine Society tries to help soul mates, but what does the Daevos Resistance get out of breaking them up? The explanation the book offered (they're evil and building an army) was poor. They're never explored any deeper than "they're evil" and the flat picture it paints takes away a lot of the tension. I did like the idea of the two groups, but they're so shallowly covered that they aren't much good. The specific antagonist, a Daevos Clan, isn't much better.
And I suppose this teaches me not to listen to one particular book blogger. They may be popular and many people may love them (to be fair, this blogger really is a sweet person), but their reviews never match up with my tastes and the books they tend to love the most are the ones I hate the most. Remember, everyone: make sure the people you rely on for book reviews have tastes that match yours in some way. Otherwise, you end up like me, buying books you hate because someone whose tastes are unlike yours said it was awesome.
1 star!
What am I reading next?: A Temptation of Angels by Michelle Zink
Great review, as always. ^_^ Hmm... wouldn't have 2 soul mates defy the very concept of "soul mate"? Unless you're Voldemort and have a soul in every city, I mean? O.o
ReplyDeleteThanks for the warning I think I'll pass this one. Not very fond of love triangles (and even less of insta-love).
Ha! I love that Siaya wrote what I was thinking as well. How can you have TWO soul mates? *shrug* Skipping this one.
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