Genre: YA Romantic Fantasy
You’ll like this if you like: Stories Where Imperfections Become Strengths, an Unexpected Love Interest, or Addictive YA Novels.
Cleanliness: It’s mentioned that Eliyana (the protagonist) was born outside of wedlock. Eliyana kisses two guys in the story—each once. But… for good reason (at least the second time). In fact, the reasons is far too complicated to explain here, especially without spoilers 😉
Hero type: Protector/Virtuous Hero, which both love interests would fall under.
Favorite profound quote:
“Your enemies are the ones who need love most.”
Favorite descriptive quote:
“There’s movement downstairs. I’m familiar with the growing pains of my lifelong home—the arthritic pops of loose floorboards, the senile complaints of unoiled hinges.”
From Amazon
Eliyana is used to the shadows. With a birthmark covering half her face, she just hopes to graduate high school unscathed. That is, until Joshua hops a fence and changes her perspective. No one, aside from her mother, has ever treated her like he does: normal. Maybe even beautiful. Because of Joshua, Eliyana finally begins to believe she could be loved.
But one night her mother doesn’t come home, and that’s when everything gets weird. Now Joshua is her new, and rather reluctant, legal Guardian. Add a hooded stalker and a Central Park battle to the mix and you’ve gone from weird to otherworldly.
Eliyana soon finds herself in a world much larger and more complicated than she’s ever known. A world enslaved by a powerful and vile man. And Eliyana holds the answer to defeating him. How can an ordinary girl, a blemished girl, become a savior when she can’t even save herself?
I seriously couldn’t get enough of this book.
The storyworld Eliyana was immersed in was fascinating—with rules of magic, special magical abilities unique to each person (AKA Callings), and unique cultures and cities.
Eliyana is dragged into this world and into a scheme much bigger than anything she’s ever imagined. She now feels like a pawn in a game, when really she plays a far more important role and wields far more power than she realizes.
Typically, I can see plot twists from a mile away (which I pride myself on 😉 ), but this story kept me guessing. It was a refreshing surprise. My one complaint is that I saw little foreshadowing, even now as I look back on the story. Like I said, it was kind of nice to be surprised, but I feel like the plot twists would’ve had a bit more of a “wow” affect if you could look back and say, “Why didn’t I figure that out?”
It has its ups and downs, but overall this was an incredibly addictive, refreshing story. I couldn’t wait to discover what would happen next, and I’m thrilled to hear there’s another book coming out (see below).
Get a free sample of Unblemished!
Coming Soon: Unraveling (The Unblemished Triology)
How much foreshadowing do you think books should have? Do you prefer more or less?