Before we get to today’s review and giveaway we have to announce the winner of the Clockwork Angel giveaway!
And the winner is…
<imagine a drumroll>
Magan Bagan! Congratulations! We’ll be contacting you shortly for your information and then the book will be winging its way to you.
Thank you so much to everyone who entered and told others to enter. It’s thanks to you that this contest was such a success. I’m just sorry we can’t give each of you a copy.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled review…
The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller is the first book in her new Ouroboros Society series. It is also the first release of the “Penguin Five,” PenguinTeen’s five most anticipated books of the fall, and it is definitely a strong kick off point.
Haven Moore has had strange dreams all her life. Dreams that afflict her at any time, any place. Dreams that might be memories of a past life. When she was young she went through an intense process to suppress the dreams and visions and has grown up as a mostly normal teenager. But when she sees the famous Iain Morrow on TV the visions come back, just as strong as ever. Who is Iain Morrow and what, if any, connection does he have to Haven?
The idea of characters having dreams that reveal tiny bits of truth, but never quite enough, has been done before so I greatly appreciated Kirsten’s ability to keep it, not only fresh and interesting but create an entirely different plot surrounding them. The fact that Haven can be afflicted at any time by these visions, and that this has caused her to be a freak in her community, is probably my favourite thing about the book. The relationship that this creates between Haven and her grandmother is frightening in its intensity. I never knew how far the grandmother was going to go. I love evil, or seemingly evil, old people. I don’t why. I just do. And as the visions have given birth to the widespread belief that Haven is possessed by the devil, the whole town has that same feeling. How far will they go in their distrust of her?
I flew through this book. A lot of the chapters were pretty short, and it kept the pace of the story at the perfect level. I loved the setting of the small town, it was both welcoming and stifling. Comforting and alarming. Kirsten captured that feeling of “perfect on the surface” to a tee. Everyone you meet has two sides and is always at the ready to ostracize the rest of the town at the drop of a hat. The abrupt change in setting about halfway though the book is done so quickly, without giving Haven or the reader a chance to think forces the reader to be just as swept up and unsure as to what exactly is going on as Haven is.
I haven’t mentioned Beau, who was probably my favourite character. He was such a good friend and had a complicated relationship with his dad. And I really appreciated that his dad was completely accepting of him. I guess what i really loved about Beau was that even when he was never-talking-to-you-again mad at Haven, he still knew that she needed to get away from the town and was willing to help.
My favourite scene was right near the end. And it could have been so horrible. It could have been such a preachy moment, with a “insert life-lesson here” vibe. But it so wasn’t. It was creepy and had a giant snake crawling around some dude. And tied it all together with the Ouroboros Society and it was such a perfect ending to the book.
So, as following tradition with our opening week we’re giving a copy away. The book is in stores now (in fact it just made the NYT Bestseller list) but we have an ARC to giveaway as well as a pamphlet about the Ouroboros Society and some temporary tattoos of the Ouroboros symbol.
To enter all you have to do is leave a comment below. For an extra entry you can tweet @PenguinTeen and tell them how excited you are for this book, or how awesome they are. Try to mention us in the tweet, @whatchYAreading so we can see that you did.
Contest closes August 26th at midnight and is open internationally.