Alyson Noel's The Immortals Series

Once again, girl meets boy, boy turns out to be immortal, girl falls in love with boy, something more-than-mortal keeps them apart...

Alyson Noel's series starts with Evermore: The Immortals which I picked up with its sequel Blue Moon at Costco. The release in paperback at the same time for a reduced price was in anticipation of book 3, Shadowland coming in hardback on November 17, 2009.

The good? It's only a bit unique. It has elements of Moonlight (the vampire show from 2007) with the ex-wife being very Corraline in flavor; it has elements of Tempted by P.C. Cast. Evermore follows the Stephenie Meyer plot feature of being saved by someone who's not mortal, and the immortal is not all good, either. (Edward the perfect = Damen the Immortal... Damen's name harkens to demon...) The immortal theme was in the Cassandra Clare books (City of Glass). I enjoyed Evermore much more than Blue Moon. Evermore had a good start; I liked Ever's name; I wanted to know about the characters and what was unusual... But it definitely wasn't as clever as Melissa de la Cruz's Blue Bloods series or the promise of P.C. Cast's early House of Night novels.

The bad? See above. I felt like I could hum all the character's lines, and that I knew based on The City of Glass, bones, etc. where this was heading. It even had Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty in the idea of Summerland. The books also felt very short to me. I finished Blue Moon in under an hour. That's a lot to pay for only an hour! I know I read quickly, but 304 pages should be more than an hour's read! Also, there were scenes from Evermore that seemed to be lifted from other novels entirely. There was the beach showdown scene... and that felt very Twilight bonfire Jacob-vampire-werewolf to me. It reminded me of when Bella jumped off the cliff, too.

For me these books were "meh." I disliked how simplistic Ever was. She was very self-serving and often oddly stupid. I mean, in the end of Blue Moon, she makes a series of incredibly bad decisions. As I was reading it, I wondered, "Really? Who would make these decisions like this? Not anyone *I* know, and I know a lot of teenage girls."

I didn't sign up to have the next in the series rushed to me... so marketing failed in this respect. If I can pick the paperback up at Costco for another song... I might. They were an OK read for Halloween... but nothing to have rush-shipped to me. I'm still on the border for Tempted the new House of Night book in the P.C. Cast world. It has terrible reviews... mine to follow, if it falls into my lap!