Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Pages: 327
Favourite Quotes: "How dare he? After what we did last night, how the hell dare he? If he was my soulmate, my soul needed to develop better taste."
"What are you doing? I can't do that. It's impossible. My hips don't go like that. How do your hips go like that?"
"He always believed that people live up or down the amount of trust you put in them."
Seventeen year old Clay Raymond has felt the glare of the spotlight her entire life. The daughter of a renowned surgeon and a prominent politician, she had become a talented photojournalist who takes refuge in a world that allows her to travel to many exotic places. But after Clea's father disappears while on a humanitarian mission, Clea begins to notice eerie, shadowy images in her photos of a strange and beautiful young man - a man she has never seen before.
When fate brings Clea and this man together, she is stunned by the immediate and powerful connection she feels with him. As they grow closer, they are drawn deep into the mystery behind her father's disappearance, and they discover the centuries-old truth behind their intense bond. Torn by a dangerous love triangle and haunted by a powerful secret that holds their fates, together they race against time to unravel their pasts in order to save their lives - and their futures.
I have a lot of respect for Hilary Duff for what she has achieved in her life, despite the constant scrutiny of the media she has to deal with. So, when I discovered that she was writing a book series, I was more than eager to read it and also quite surprised at this potentially risky move. It's hard enough to put your own work out there when you aren't famous. But, when you are? It's like giving people a VIP card to rip you apart. Because of this, I ended up having rather high expectations of this novel, especially after I read the plot summary (and that beautiful cover!). The concept of a mysterious stranger in your photos? Give me. Now.
I think Hilary Duff and Elise Allen did a great job when it comes to the relationship between the characters. I liked the friendship Rayna, Clea and Ben shared. It wasn't the sophisticated kind, like some novels like to create, in the pretense that that's how friend's interact. Theirs was silly, comfortable and real. I also think Duff and Allen did a good job (in the majority) of portraying Clea. It's not easy to write a character that is so clearly privileged without making her seem spoiled. In fact, Clea's social status never seemed particularly relevant in the story compared to who she was as a person. Bonus points, as well, for creating a likable personality for her, without making it unrealistic.
Unfortunately, as a whole, I was rather disappointed with the novel. While I enjoyed many aspects of it, I can't help but be bothered by the strong similarities with Elixir and The Immortal series by Alyson Noël and the predictable story line. I didn't enjoy how the story focused on Sage and Clea's love life when I felt that there were far more relevant and interesting directions the story could have taken instead. I think it would have made far more sense to integrate the romance in a stronger story line rather than let it become the focus.
Of course, there were several strong plot points involved, but I don't think they have been explored to their full potential and I also think that the path the authors took from getting to one plot point to the other was too weak. I think this was most notable given the strong beginning of the story. At first, Clea was easily a very independent and intelligent young woman. As the story progressed however, readers are literally watching her IQ drop as her involvement with Sage grew. I hated that. There was one particular moment, when she stopped questioning her dreams, where you can actually see intelligent Clea being replaced by irrational love-struck Clea.
Finally, what got me the most out of everything in the novel, is Clea's treatment of Ben at the end of the book. If you've read it, you'll know what I mean, and if you haven't, or haven't predicted it, I won't spoil it for you. I just feel that what happened, and the aftermath thereof, was very out of character for both Clea and Ben. It didn't make sense and appeared to be only a crutch to enable a similarity between Clea and the, uh, thing (there you go, still spoiler free). I'm hoping that there will be this sneaky plot-twist in the next book(s) that will explain the necessity for this behavior. Please.
Although Clea's character development backtracked, and I was downright disgusted with her behaviour at the end of the book, I still enjoyed reading through her. She was still a far better YA heroine than a significant others that are out there. This is most clearly seen in her reaction to Sage after he did the avoiding thing, which I won't got into details about to keep this spoiler free. She was upset, sure, but compared to the usual, well, Bella Swan reaction of pinning-after-him-hopelessly-with-no-mind-of-her-own, she actually respected herself (yes, you heard that right. She's got self-respect, cue back to the 'better YA heroine than a significant others out there') and downright refused to be treated that way.
I'm serious. Stop gaping. That actually happened.
In conclusion, while the book was not as great as I hoped it would be, it was actually a pretty decent read. I particularly recommend it if you enjoy tragic love stories and don't mind love triangles (I personally don't like them, which probably contributed to my annoyance at the heavy romance story line). The characters are all great, although Clea has her moments of being ridiculous and Sage was too attractive for my liking, and I again have to comment on the excellent portrayal of friendship until the end/aftermath scenes. This book was definitely a credit to YA books, although it had several shortcomings and wasn't very original. I will be reading the sequels, and if you're into books that take place in various countries, heavily feature romance, sort-of involve the elixir of life and are not too serious, I would absolutely suggest you pick this up.
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