Book Thoughts: Prophecy of the Sisters

Title: Prophecy of the Sisters
Author: Michelle Zink
Series: Prophecy of the Sisters #1

I've had a copy of Prophecy of the Sisters on my bookshelf for ages now and just hadn't picked it up. All the hype for the second book made me think that maybe I should read it, and I think on the whole, I'm glad I did.

I didn't realize when I started that this novel is actually set in the year 1890. I'd been expecting something a bit more modern, so that was kind of a surprise, but a pleasant surprise, because it worked perfectly. The novel opens with Lia and her family at her father's funeral. The circumstances of his death were strange, and the night he died, a strange circular mark appeared on Lia's wrist. Not long after, her boyfriend James shows her a book he found in her father's library: a book with all the pages missing except one. This page contains a prophecy about Lia and her twin sister Alice. Her father and the mark on her wrist have more to do with it than Lia understands, but she's determined to find out.

I love the premise of this book. The idea of the prophecy of the sisters is really awesome, and putting it in a historical setting just makes it better. I like the characters, too - I wish we had gotten to see more of James, and I love Luisa and Sonia's characters too. I wish there had been more Henry, too!

I will admit that for a lot of the book, I was really annoyed by how predictable it was. I figured out what the keys were (part of the prophecy mentions keys) within a few pages of the first mention of them, but it took Lia a good fifty or a hundred pages after that, which is never a good sign. I like reading to discover new things, and if I know what's going to happen within fifty pages, then why read past that? But there were still a few questions that I hadn't guessed the answers to, so I kept reading, and I'm so glad I did.

By the end of the novel, I was blatantly ignoring everything else I needed to be doing (such as feeding the cat. He was not pleased) so I could finish. I didn't realize until the last few chapters how much of an emotional connection I'd made with Lia! Oh, and another random thing that I really loved about this: it was not all about boys! Lia already has a boyfriend who she loves, and the focus of the story is not on that romance, it's on the plot. Hooray for plot variation!

Long story short: I do recommend this, with a warning attached: It's a little slow and predictable in places. Still, though, I did enjoy it, especially in the second half once it really got going. And definitely check it out if you like paranormal in a historical setting.

Book Thoughts: Numbers

Title: Numbers
Author: Rachel Ward
Series: Numbers #1

The premise of this book is so cool. The idea just drew me in. It wasn't about exactly what I thought it would be about - the book jacket makes it sound like it's about the discovery of a terrorist plot or something, but that's only in the first quarter of the book. It's more about Jem and Spider on the run afterwards.

I love the Britishness of Numbers. I love the characters. I really love the story. Jem and Spider are so much fun to read about, and Jem is such a complex character - she's literally an outcast of society, and readers can relate to her. And she's got so many questions and problems, about letting people in and and trusting people and coming to terms with death. I wish Spider had been a bit more developed, and the other side characters. Britney, for example - I loved her. I wanted to know more about her.

I also loved the way Rachel Ward explored the idea of knowing when people will die. Is it better to know when you will die or to leave it a mystery? By coming into contact with someone, can you change their future? How much of life is predestined from birth and how much can be changed? So many interesting concepts. It's so cool.

I was not a fan of the ending. Because I am also not a fan of spoilers, I'm not about to tell you what that ending is, but I will say that it would have been a much better book (in my opinion) without the epilogue. If it had stopped before that, it would have been great. That aside, though, I will definitely be reading the sequel soon (I actually have an ARC in my possession, which is what prompted me to read Numbers in the first place).

Also, can I just take a moment to say that this cover is really awesome?

Book Thoughts: Unearthly

Title: Unearthly
Author: Cynthia Hand
Series: Unearthly #1

I don't even know where to start. School and travel made it hard for me to really get started with this one, but once I started, I barely put it down (exceptions: participation-required school events, such as a physics quiz. Stupid school). It was fantastic. Unearthly sucked me in and wouldn't let me go.

The summary seems a little off to me; at the beginning of the novel, Clara already knows she's part angel. In fact, she is receiving her Purpose - the big mission that is basically the point of her life. Her family (Clara, her mom, and her brother Jeffrey) moves to Wyoming so that she can find the boy who she believes she must save from a forest fire, but she doesn't have a clue about the particulars. Christian is everything she imagined the boy of her dreams to be, and then there's Tucker - her best friend's brother, who picks on her incessantly from the moment she arrives and who just might really like her. And while Clara is figuring out her Purpose in life, she's also learning more than she thought there was to know about her angel heritage...

Cynthia Hand has created a world that is absolutely riveting. I love, love, love her idea of angel-bloods and their Purposes, and just everything about the supernatural world she has created. And the characters are really fantastic - not just Clara and Christian and Tucker, but also Wendy and Angela and Jeffrey and Clara's mom (and, and, and...). Any one of them could easily be real; they're multifaceted and flawed, and the relationships between the characters seemed genuine too. Not to mention the story itself, which was simply captivating -- I needed to keep reading, to find out what would happen next, what else the characters would face.

I'm trying hard not to just go into a gushing rant about Unearthly but apparently that isn't working so well. At any rate, I loved this book, and I absolutely recommend it. Go forth and read!