Immortal by Lauren Burd

Title: Immortal

Series: Immortal

Author: Lauren Burd

Length: 4807 Kindle units (includes preview of next book)

Rating: 4 stars

The Plot

Alina figures she will meet new people when she starts college, but she doesn’t expect to meet two incredibly handsome boys who are equally interested in her. Duncan won’t leave her alone and even starts to date Alina’s roommate in order to stay close to her. Samuel, on the other hand, alternates between being interested ignoring her, but she can’t stop thinking about him. But what she doesn’t know that both boys are keeping a supernatural secret that is going to change her life forever.

The Good

Overall, Immortal was a pretty good read. One has to have a special appreciation for a book about college students in which the characters not only go to class, but do plot-relevant things there as well.

I got totally sucked into the book and could not put it down. I was reading it late at night, and I really needed to go to bed, but I just kept telling myself “One more chapter.” Eventually I stopped about halfway through the novel. Then the next day, I thought I would read a chapter or two before I started doing important things like writing my blog post.  Instead, I finished the whole thing. I’m not quite sure what it was about it, but Immortal kept me captivated, and chapter endings always made me want to read more.

The Bad

Immortal loses the most points is the originality scale. For the first half of the book, I kept thinking, “Wait. It’s the story of two immortal boys who are in love with the same girl and who were once in love with the same girl before. I read this book fifteen years ago. It’s The Vampire Diaries.” Then the story began to progress in a different direction – one about how the immortals are trying to stay free of their evil leaders who like to recruit new immortals with special powers. Or, you know, in a similar manner to Twilight. (Technically New Moon, but let’s not split hairs.)

Immortal was also very slow to get started. The only important thing that happens in the first few chapters is that Alina sees Samuel in two places but does not interact with him. I assume this is to give him primacy over Duncan, who is the first one to actually strike up a conversation with her. Nonetheless, I wondered for a good quarter of the book when the actual story was going to get started, and I don’t think anything supernatural happens until nearly halfway through. I realize this rather contradicts what I said about getting sucked into the book. I can only explain my general thought process as “Hm. Nothing in happening, but maybe something will happen in the next chapter, so I shouldn’t put it down.” And then I didn’t put it down and finished this book and the sequel in less than 36 hours.

The Romance

The romance in Immortal is a relatively standard set-up for paranormal romance. Girl of only moderate attractiveness has two extremely attractive men clamoring for her affections. One is quiet and reserved, while the other is outgoing but possibly caddish. What was not sufficiently explained was why both these boys were interested in Alina, who describes her appearance as similar to that of a 12-year-old, despite the fact that she is 18. I kept expecting her to be the reincarnation/spitting image of the girl that both boys were in love with. Unfortunately, this information is not forthcoming. I’ve now read the first two books in the series, and I don’t feel like I’ve gotten a very satisfying answer.

In other strange and unlikely topics, I actually like the good boy better. It’s crazy, cuz I almost always like the bad boy better.

Will I read more?

As I indicated previously, I have already read book 2 in the series, so look for an upcoming appearance for Sequel Tuesday. The third book isn’t out yet, but if it was, I probably would have read at least part of it last night when I should have been sleeping.

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