It’s the beginning of another month, which means YA Highway wants to know:
What’s the best book you read in May?
I actually only read a few books last month, so I don’t have as many to sift through as I did last time they asked this question. I read one book for YA book club, beta-read one, reread one, and read one ARC copy.
One really, really sticks out in my mind:
Haven Moore can’t control her visions of a past with a boy called Ethan, and a life in New York that ended in fiery tragedy. In our present, she designs beautiful dresses for her classmates with her best friend Beau. Dressmaking keeps her sane, since she lives with her widowed and heartbroken mother in her tyrannical grandmother’s house in Snope City, a tiny town in Tennessee. Then an impossible group of coincidences conspire to force her to flee to New York, to discover who she is, and who she was.
In New York, Haven meets Iain Morrow and is swept into an epic love affair that feels both deeply fated and terribly dangerous. Iain is suspected of murdering a rock star and Haven wonders, could he have murdered her in a past life? She visits the Ouroboros Society and discovers a murky world of reincarnation that stretches across millennia. Haven must discover the secrets hidden in her past lives, and loves¸ before all is lost and the cycle begins again.
What an intriguing concept! I got this book as part of a Traveling ARC Tour, and I am so thrilled that I got to read it early.
When I first started this book, I thought I wasn’t going to like it much, despite the premise. It opens with Haven looking in the mirror, describing her appearance, which instantly turned me off. I mean, not only is that an overdone thing, it just seems like lazy writing.
But…I kept reading. And by the second or third page I learned that there is a very specific reason why Haven is using the old mirror trick – that person she is looking at in the mirror is not the same person she sees in the mirror every day, but rather the one she sees only in her visions and dreams. Suddenly the mirror thing didn’t bother me so much. 
As Haven’s visions come more frequently, she becomes more and more sure she is seeing memories of a past life. At the same time, her grandmother–and much of her small, bible-thumping Tennessee town–becomes more sure she has been possessed by a demon.
I won’t say much more about the plot, but I will tell you I loved it. While it is a love story, it didn’t cross into that realm where the romance is all that matters. In fact, most of the time I was way more caught up in the action than I was in the love story. Because there is great action, and great pacing to move the reader along through the action. I kept thinking I had the twists and turns figured out, but it turns out I am just not that clever. The Eternal Ones kept me guessing.
With all my raving about the plot, it might be hard for you to believe that it wasn’t my favorite part about The Eternal Ones. What was my favorite part, you ask? The characters! Kirsten Miller did such a great job on her characters. A lot of times when I read a book (especially a YA book), I notice that the main character and the love interest and maybe a secondary character or two are nicely fleshed-out, while the rest of the characters are really one-dimensional and flat. Pretty much they are just a bunch of cardboard cutouts standing in the background of what the main characters are doing.
This is SO not the case with The Eternal Ones. I love the attention Kirsten Miller gave to her characters–even ones we don’t see much in the book. Sure, there were things about Haven that irritated me (really, girl! Do you believe everything anyone tells you?!), but that doesn’t make her any less a real character. Probably I was so irritated by some of her actions because I know people like that–she was real enough to annoy me. It’s like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix–sure, Harry is a bratty little hormonal teenager in that book….but what 15-year-old boy isn’t?
Wow. I just compared The Eternal Ones to Harry Potter. It must really be good!
The Eternal Ones will be released in August by Razorbill. I highly recommend it. To read a excerpt now (how fun!) check out TheEternalOnes.com.
8 Comments
I’ll have to be on the lookout when this one comes out
The cover is so cool!
Oh – you sold me on this. I can’t wait until it comes out. And I kinda think the twist on using a double cliched opening is cool
It was a really cool thing once I realized what she was doing!
The cover definitely looks awesome. ARCs make me so jealous!! I’ll have to look out for this one..
You should check out Traveling ARC Tours. You don’t get to keep the ARCs, but it is so fun to be able to read books early.
Rachel! I just finished this book the other night and have been looking for someone to chat with about it – SO excited to see this as your pick!
I thought the writing was good (although I TOTALLY balked at the mirror thing on the first page as well!), and I liked the characters. Well…I liked sort of liked Haven, even though she kept wavering and not standing her ground. LOVED Beau. Thought the other characters were fleshed out, as you said. Iain…mmm, just a little too possessive for me to find attractive.
The plot was definitely cool and twisty, and I love the idea of past lives. And it could have been so complicated and confusing, but she did a good job making it relatively easy to follow. Sometimes I felt like some characters made decisions simply for the sake of the plot, though…like they did things or made decisions that were a little out of character, if that makes sense.
Yay! So glad to see someone else who’s read this one.
I LOVED Beau, too! He and his dad were my favorites. Haven irritated me a lot, but she seemed pretty real. And I totally agree about Iain–possession is really not my thing.
I did notice that sometimes things seemed to be done just to further the plot, but overall I thought it was strong enough that it didn’t really bother me. I am glad someone read this post who had actually read the book before!