Novel Review: Until I Die (Revenants, #2) by Amy Plum

Rating (Out of 5): ~4

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

Publisher: HarperCollins (HarperTeen)

Publish Date: May 2012

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Kate and Vincent have overcome the odds and at last they are together in Paris, the city of lights and love.

As their romance deepens there’s one question they can’t ignore: How are they supposed to be together if Vincent can’t resist sacrificing himself to save others? Although Vincent promises that he’ll do whatever it takes to lead a normal life with Kate, will that mean letting innocent people die? When a new and surprising enemy reveals itself, Kate realizes that even more may be at stake—and that Vincent’s immortality is in jeopardy.

In Die for Me, Amy Plum created a captivating paranormal mythology with immortal revenants and a lush Paris setting. Until I Die is poised to thrill readers with more heart-pounding suspense, spellbinding romance, and a cliff-hanger ending that will leave them desperate for the third and final novel in the series.

Something Specific:

Quotes:

• “‘Um, yeah. I guess lying around reading books all day doesn’t do much for physical endurance.’” (Hardback, pg. 3) Ahh, if only…
• "He completed me. Not that I wasn’t a whole person on my own. But who he was seemed to complement who I was.” (Hardback, pg. 171) This is a thought that I have pretty much never seen before in a book, so I particularly liked it.

The Cover:

I like these covers. They're pretty, the setting in particular, and it fits for the setting. It also has the typical, girl-in-a-pretty-dress thing, but that's not a big bother for me. It's a little embarrassing, but not too much. Overall, I think it's pretty and fitting.

Review:

I put off reading this because I heard about a horrible cliffhanger, but now I have the third, and last, book, so I finally got to reading it. And I’m kind of glad that I waited, because I would not have liked having to wait so long.

This book seemed to move rather slowly. It’s not action-packed, it focuses a lot on Kate and Vincent’s relationship, along with a reasonable amount for the other characters. It’s rather character-based, although there is still some action. It doesn’t seem like very much is happening, but there actually is. And for some reason, it’s really easy to get sucked into the story, to keep wanting to read, and for the pages to go by rather quickly.

The descriptions of the places that Kate goes are rather well done. I get a good image of where she is, and I can easily tell that Kate is enjoying it, is relishing in the view. Also, I like that the Eifel Tower is not the centered Paris Place in this book; it tends to be the main event for most people, is always the thing showed and thought of when Paris is brought up, so I’m glad that Kate sees so much else, and that the Eifel Tower only gets a couple small mentions, in this one and the first book.

I’m still a rather big fan of Vincent and Kate; Vincent is a sweetheart, and Kate is very active and pretty smart, which I like. The romance between them is well done, and a lot of focus is placed on it, which I think is good. There are also several romantic scenes between the two, and the only upsetting thing about that is that they’re so tiny.

I haven’t grown as close with the other characters, and some of them are kind of hard to remember what their personality is supposed to be, just because the time with them is so little. I do like Georgia, Kate’s sister, as well as Jules, and Ambrose seems funny, although I don’t feel like I know the last two well enough. We met some new characters in this book, and I kind of already guessed what was going to happen with them, so I wasn’t surprised.

I think my biggest, and really only, problem with the book was that I didn’t feel very intense emotions throughout any of it. At the end, for example, when this big climax happened, I didn’t feel like I was experiencing what Kate should have been feeling. I think she should have been hurried, rushed, but she didn’t seem to be. And that kind of bothered me. That’s really the only reason that the rating is only a light 4 stars, instead of higher.

The ending, though, was a rather bad cliffhanger. It’s just mean, and I’m not very happy about it. I have several theories on where the story could go from here, some of which regarding the very end of the book, and some regarding the Champion business, but I’m not going to talk about them here, just because they would be full of spoilers and I don’t want to ruin that much. I’ll just leave it at: I’m very excited to read the last book.

As soon as I finish this review, in fact, I plan on starting it. I’m not even giving the series a break/pause to read another book, like I normally would. I’m fully ready to see how this series ends, and very excited for it.