Book Review: Embrace

Embrace by Jessica Shirvington

Series: The Violet Eden Chapters #1

Published by Sourcebooks Fire on March 6th 2012
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 367

Goodreads

It starts with a whisper: “It’s time for you to know who you are…”

Violet Eden dreads her seventeenth birthday. After all, it’s hard to get too excited about the day that marks the anniversary of your mother’s death. As if that wasn’t enough, disturbing dreams haunt her sleep and leave her with very real injuries. There’s a dark tattoo weaving its way up her arms that wasn’t there before.

Violet is determined to get some answers, but nothing could have prepared her for the truth. The guy she thought she could fall in love with has been keeping his identity a secret: he’s only half-human—oh, and same goes for her.

A centuries-old battle between fallen angels and the protectors of humanity has chosen its new warrior. It’s a fight Violet doesn’t want, but she lives her life by two rules: don’t run and don’t quit. When angels seek vengeance and humans are the warriors, you could do a lot worse than betting on Violet Eden…

Another angel book. How I wish I could quit these.

Violet, our MC, hates her birthday. It is an everlasting memory of the mother that she has lost. However, unlike every other birthday, this one brings strange occurrences along with it. Weird tattoos that appear out of thin air. Vivid dreams. And the discovery that she is more than she ever imagined.

Embrace started on a positive note. I liked Violet, even if she was a bit whiny. And the premise, for an angel book, was very well done. On the surface, Embrace has plenty of elements to enchant readers looking for a supernatural twist.

But then the love triangle started…

To sum things up nicely, please be aware of possible spoilers ahead, Violet has had a long standing crush on her training partner Lincoln. Yet she thinks that he will never give her the time of day. When things just about get started with these two, Violet's secret gets unveiled and Phoenix enters the picture. Now, out of the two boys, if you even really want to call them that, Phoenix was definitely the more interesting. Didn't really care for the whole 'I am a bad boy' vibe, but at least his back story was quite interesting.

Still with me? Doesn't sound so bad so far does it?

And to be honest, to this point, I was still pretty sold. However, and this was the turning point for me, Violet all of a sudden does a 360 and acts like Lincoln never existed. Yes, there are some valid-ish trust breaking reasons for that, but Embrace never explains why things happen the way that they did until the very, very end. Did it make sense once the reveal happens? Yea, kinda. But I hated the way that the love triangle, if you really even want to call it that, happens. It felt so pointless: Violet deeply cares for Lincoln. Phoenix walks onto the scene. Violet thinks Lincoln who? and basically runs away with Phoenix. Things are revealed. Then it is 'oh, I really loved Lincoln, this whole time.' 'Phoenix, you are a really, really bad guy.' The End.

Final Verdict:

Embrace was enjoyable for the addition of a newish angel premise and that was about it. The love triangle was beyond silly. And frankly, made little sense until the every end. But by that point, I could have care less who Violet ended up with. Embrace is part of a trilogy. But for me, this is as far as I go.

Kate

Kate is the co-blog owner of The Book Monsters. I am a twenty-something year old who is passionate about reading. I currently hold a B.A. in English and am married to my high school sweetheart. We have two (cat) children, Gracie and Kit, who are total divas. I have an insane and possibly unhealthy passion for reading. You can usually find me with my nose buried in a book.