I am not the target audience for this book. That has to be said upfront. Unearthly is a Young Adult supernatural romance book that I believe caters to the Twilight crowd (which I am emphatically not, no matter what my editor thinks!). This isn't a problem with the book, by any means, just a commentary on the mismatch between it and me. So in order to attempt to review it correctly (and if you are wondering why I, a 30-*cough*-year old guy is reviewing it, well, there are actually a multitude of reasons, some of which may or may not entail blackmail -- I still maintain that isn't me in those pictures!), rather than writing the review as me, I will instead attempt to review it from the standpoint of a 14-year old girl. Here goes nothing. <Deep Breath>

this book is sOoOoOoOo good! OMG, u have no idea!!! ummmm so like the main chick Clara is a part angel (OMG how cool would that be) and starts having like these visions n stuff about a cute boy in the middle of a biiiig forest fire. O_O Clara's also angelly mom sez the vision is of Clara's angel purpose b/c all angels have a purpose to do on earth so her mom moves them all including Clara's part angel brother 2 wyoming 2 go 2 school where Clara can be 2 meet this cute boy. OMG that sounds just like when my bff Jenn met this hott boy Jaymz at a party but he wuz at a different school so she told her mom she wanted 2 switch schools but her mom said no are u crazy and she was mad about it til she found out that Jaymz had been sending texts and pics to this girl Alison also and what does he see in her just cuz she wears her hair in those STOOOPID pigtails all the time and everyone knows Jenn is WAY hotter than Alison.

ummmmm well newayz where was i? ok so Clara is at this new school where she meets her hott vision boy Christian and tries 2 get 2 know him but he has a bitch of a gf already so it is hard but it is her angel purpose so she keeps trying. she also meets her two bffs Wendy and Angela who don't like each other but thats ok and Clara likes her new school but has to hide her cool angel powers like speaking all these languages and stuff. Oooooh and she has angel wings and can fly OMG that would be sOoOo much fun! and she also meets Wendy's bro Tucker who calls her Carrots b/c she had to dye her hair to hide her angel glow and it came out bright orange red hahAHaha! and Clara's angel mom tells her about the angel war and the bad blackwing angels guys who are fallen and bad and Clara thinks that one of them may be following her which would be bad but she still has to fulfill her angel purpose! newayz so Clara has lotz of stuff to dealz with just like me when i wuz...

*Gah*. Okay, attempting to write as such is making my head hurt. I guess I am not cut out to be a 14 year old girl. Plus, writing as such is actually unfair to the book and the author, as Unearthly is quite well written for a YA book, moving at a good, fast pace. The supernatural aspect is handled in a straight-forward manner, with the main character already knowing she is a Quarter-Angel at the beginning (which I appreciated, so there weren't chapters upon chapters at the beginning of the book with the main character saying "I know I am special... but why?!" when we the readers already know, having read the book jacket), but just starting to come into her own powers. Major philosophical discussions about the nature of God, of Heaven, Hell and the like are touched upon, enough so that they are not completely ignored, but avoided enough so that they don't bog down the story.

In this, her debut novel, Dr. Hand makes some interesting choices, with perhaps the biggest being that the book is written in present tense. I always find that odd and distracting, personally, but unlike most books written as such, I actually got used to it as I read further into the story. So it works, I guess. The balance between the supernatural and romance aspects works as well, with probably more emphasis on the romance side of things, as Clara tries to sort through her feelings for Christian, with knowing her Angelic Purpose appears to be saving him from a forest fire, and Tucker, who annoys her at first before she realizes what a good guy he is. Okay, yes, there are a few stereotypes involved in the characters (ah, the guy the main character is interested in happens to be the most popular guy in school and he is seeing the bitchy but popular girl? I never would have guessed that!), but these are forgivable considering that a) this is a YA book, and b) stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.

There is one rather substantial problem I had with the book, though, and that was the number of unanswered questions. This is reportedly the first book of a trilogy, so I'm guessing that answers will be forthcoming. And the book concludes at the point that I would have expected, but there are still a lot of questions by the end that were either directly raised within the pages or in the minds of the reader with not many answers to be found. One could argue this is evidence that the book did its job and pulled me into the story enough that I care what the answers to these questions are. One could argue that, sure, but for me, I was disappointed and unsatisfied with the lack of closure.

But having said that, I enjoyed the book. Me, the 30-*cough*-year old, non-YA-romance-supernatural-or-otherwise-reading guy. So I would, in fact, recommend reading it. I may even read the sequel when it comes out in order to find the answers to my questions and cuz i need 2 find out wut happens with Clara and her 2 boys Christian and Tucker b/c OMG the ending of the book made me all nOoOooOo i dont wanna wait for the next book which is like that one time in my english class but my editor sez i have work 2 do so i will give u the deetz of that story later cuz i g2g now.

xoxoxoxoxo :):):):)

  -- K. Burtt