The Eternity Cure (Blood of Eden, # 2)
By: Julie Kagawa
Published: April 30th 2013 by Harlequin Teen
446 pages
Genre: YA, Paranormal, Dystopian
Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you!!)
( Goodreads | Amazon
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Goodreads description--Allison Sekemoto has vowed to rescue her creator, Kanin, who is being held hostage and tortured by the psychotic vampire Sarren. The call of blood leads her back to the beginning—New Covington and the Fringe, and a vampire prince who wants her dead yet may become her wary ally.Even as Allie faces shocking revelations and heartbreak like she’s never known, a new strain of the Red Lung virus that decimated humanity is rising to threaten human and vampire alike.
I'm finding that I don't have much to say about The Eternity Cure...or at the very least, I'm not really sure how to put my thoughts about it into words. The Eternity Cure, the same as The Immortal Rules, had a really slow start for me. I was probably about 45-50% through the book before I really began to get hooked, and even then I bordered on...well...boredom.
Julie Kagawa has created an extremely vivid world, and I had no trouble picturing this place that she's created or the creatures who lived there. The world building is probably the strongest positive for The Eternity Cure in my opinion.
As with The Immortal Rules, I found myself somewhat disconnected to the characters of this book. Allie is a pretty strong leading lady willing to jump in the mix of all situations, but something about her keeps me from connecting. I can't quite put my finger on what that is. I still struggled some with Kanin, although he's probably my favorite character in the series so far. Still there were times when even he fell flat of my expectations of him. Our cast of characters in this installment included several that we met in The Immortal Rules. I still didn't 100% buy Zeke and his feelings for Allie. Stick was more confusing than ever and I really just wanted to choke the life out of him. And Allie's blood brother, Jackal, appeared in a large portion of The Eternity Cure, and I found myself being won over by him--though never trusting him entirely. I don't know...I guess that's the thing. None of these characters crossed into ones that I just loved or adored.
The plot was fairly predictable though there was one part about halfway in that I wasn't totally expecting to come when it did but knew it had to come eventually. Other than that, I wasn't really surprised by anything--especially not the ending. I did enjoy the addition of the new strain of the Red Lung virus. It added some pressure on our characters to search for the cure that Kanin was trying to find so many years ago, and pretty much what started the whole mess the world is in up to this point.
Overall, I keep coming back to the word "flat." I know many out there adored The Immoral Rules, but neither it nor The Eternity Cure really measured up to all that much for me. While I didn't hate it, The Eternity Cure definitely fell into the "Ugh" category for me...meaning 2.5 Stars is the best rating I feel like I can give it. Have you read The Eternity Cure? What did you think? Let me know!
