A review by emleemay
Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

3.0

I always feel a little bad when I disagree with the majority about a book, like there must be something I'm missing or I obviously didn't 'get' it. I do understand why a lot of people enjoyed [b:Unearthly|7488244|Unearthly (Unearthly, #1)|Cynthia Hand|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1324782984s/7488244.jpg|9621771] and there were parts I liked too... but I still wasn't blown away. As far as young adult stories about angels go, this is probably one of the best - only, that's not really saying much. I found the book okay in many ways, I don't have a huge rant to make about girls who are obsessed with boys over everything else, or just plain annoying... but the most dominant emotion I felt through a lot of this novel was boredom.

It seems that my expectations are always going to be ripped apart and tossed aside. If I'd opened this book expecting to hate it, I'd probably have written a 5-star dazzling review. As it happens, I was hyped up on all the rave reviews, even from some of my hardest-to-please friends and I kept reading on and on and waiting for the plot or characters to grab me so I'd think "yes, I definitely see why everyone loves this!" but it never happened that way. It starts with a mysterious vision that sounded potentially very interesting, which then leads our protagonist (Clara) and her family to Wyoming in order to follow the call of her angelic purpose (she's part angel). From there the story simply seems to spiral off into another high school drama. Clara's angelic purpose all centres around the hottest and most popular boy in school and she then, of course, becomes immediate enemies with his equally gorgeous and popular girlfriend. Then we get to an array of proms, boy troubles, class projects and finally the realisation that maybe mr popular-angelic-purpose is not the one Clara truly wants to be with.

It was all fine, I just never got a sense of "wow" or any particular need to stalk Amazon until [b:Hallowed|11563110|Hallowed (Unearthly, #2)|Cynthia Hand|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1332883896s/11563110.jpg|14532305] comes out. I wanted very much to like it, I don't know if my expectations were too high but I obviously missed what makes this book so special. That's why I'd still recommend this book to anyone who loves a bit of young adult paranormalness (not a word??) because I'm fairly sure that the problem was my own. Everyone I've talked to loved this book and I'm not entirely sure why I just couldn't get into it. The characters were varied and interesting, there were some parts I found quite funny, it just... I don't know. The best thing I can tell you in this review is to read it for yourself.