Unearthly Review

Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

Angels are the new thing and I decided to jump on that bandwagon.

I feel like this is what Twilight could have been if it had been written a lot better. Especially in the beginning of the book, I definitely got a Twilight feel, but everything was much more dynamic. And after a while, I quit comparing the book to other books.

Clara is part angel with a purpose. She only has to find out what it is. Eventually, she finds out enough to prompt a move from California to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. At school, she meets to object of her purpose.

Spoilers ahead

Clara definitely is more real than most characters in YA. I could relate to her thoughts and they were more interesting than "Gee that guy's hot so I love him." Of course there was some of that, but there was more there. She had relationships that came about more slowly and naturally. I had only heard good things about the book and didn't read much about it before reading, so I actually wasn't sure that she'd fall in love with Tucker.

I was pleasantly surprised, as I had been afraid that I would get stuck with another Edward, Damen, or Daniel... the guy even had the right kind of name- Christian.

But Christian also turned out to be a better character than I expected. While I could see that he was also part angel a mile away, I was surprised that he didn't actually love Clara. He was willing to sacrifice is own love, Kay, to fulfill his purpose, but he really just liked Clara as a friend. This brought the book way up in my esteem, especially after the Black Wing thing.

The Black Wing in the woods felt out of place. I guess this is where the story was supposed to start getting epic with a war between good and evil. It was obvious that Clara is special- having way more power than a quarter angel should have. But really, the only effect that it had on the book was to start the fire that was in Clara's vision. Anything could have done that.

End spoilers

I have just a few more things...
1. There were way too many embarrassing moments in the beginning of the book. I have a massive amount of second-hand embarrassment and I kept having to put the book down until I could stomach reading whatever situation was going on. I wasn't always right in predicting what happened and it sometimes wasn't as embarrassing as I thought, but it was a lot.
2. There were too many secrets left at the end. What was Clara's purpose supposed to be? What was her mother's purpose? All the big questions were still left.
3. Sometimes I felt like scenes were skipped. Like one time when Clara mentions going to pick berries the next day and in the next scene she was fishing.

But overall, I really liked this one. It felt a little slow and drawn out sometimes, but I felt that the characters were actually likable.4 out of 5