ARC Review: ETERNITY'S AWAKENING by Anne Malcom

Heartbeats had a pesky way of complicating things.
They almost always came with the nasty side effect of humanity and finally... death.
Since Thorne came into my life, I'd been plagued with both.
Heartbeats and humanity.
Both of these things were going to be the death of me.
One way or another.
And the death of everyone I knew and loved, a list growing longer with every beat of my newly repaired—and irritating—heart.
That pesky humanity was almost as toxic as the most debilitating illness on this hunk of rock, killing more humans than any vampire could.
Love.
And there I was, attached to a slayer who I couldn't be undead without.
Friends who I was becoming increasingly attached to.
All things—people—he would take away from me.
Then he'd take me too.
But if it came to that, I'd yank out my beating heart and crush it in my hands before he could touch me.
It was lost anyway. If he won, my eternity would come to an end. As it happened, so would the world.
That only meant I couldn't lose.

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My Review

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

And the drama continues...

It took me so long to figure out how to rate this story. There was so much to love and one glaringly obvious thing to hate.

What I wanted to do to Isla for most of this book 😒😠

Ultimately, the good outweighed the bad and here we are. I loved the way the story of the uprising continued to unfold and the idea of a prophesy. It was still interesting to see how all of these characters played a pivotal part, no matter how hard they fought it.

Screw it, I can't continue until I get my Isla issues off of my chest. She drove me up many walls with her behavior. For the first two books, I found her annoyingly awesome and it was easy to stomach her superficial and irreverent attitude. I just couldn't do it again. No more excuses for this witch.

"I am well aware of your unpredictable, narcissistic, childish, and downright suicidal behavior." - Rick

And she had the gall to be proud of her abhorrent actions. I read this book with equal parts disdain and disgust over her character. At one point she even points out that people keep expecting her to grow up or evolve and that it wasn't going to happen because she loved who she was.

I'm all for loving yourself. If you can't love you, how can you expect others to love you? I get that 100%. And you shouldn't really have to change just to please other people. But when you're a horrible person and can admit that and when you know that those you love and who love you find it hard to completely get behind your movement? Loving yourself to the point where you hurt, disregard, and disrespect those you claim to love takes it too far. Considering that most of the book is told from her perspective, with her sarcasm, ignorance, and so-called sass sprinkled liberally throughout, this story has gotten a bit hard to stomach.

And really, how much more of this am I supposed to take?

When you take Isla out of the equation, for the most part, the rest of this story was insanely good. Whenever Thorne wasn't busy saving Isla, being concerned for Isla, talking sense into Isla, and generally being her little Jiminy Cricket, he was the alpha, protective, vicious, and fearsome warrior I had come to know and love. I only wish I got to see more of his perspective. His voice of reason was beyond necessary. Let's not forget the colorful cast of secondary characters, such as Sophie, Conall, Duncan, Rick and Scott. All were amazing and a couple of them broke my heart into pieces. I literally gasped from the shock and had to control my anger at the change in the story. Luckily a glimpse at the end gave me some hope, but my heart is still quite broken.

Heart. Freaking. Broken.

So there's a rebellion and a rise for control of the human race. Leader of the pack is Isla's not-so-dead husband, Johnathan. I really liked how the other used him as a potential growing pain for Isla and how fabulously it failed. Death is imminent and still Isla can't take anything seriously. At least her bloodthirsty ways are still alive and kicking. I love the fight scenes and every chance there is for Isla to prove why I hate and love her so much!

I know. I know. It's just that I really do hate and love Isla so much!!

Honestly, this story has been incredible. With the bold strokes this author gave to the world she's created, you can't help but be engrossed by the drastic twists and turns that she puts her characters through. I'm constantly surprised and I love not knowing what to expect next. Nothing is predictable and no one is safe. Is a happy ending still possible? I sure do hope so. I can't wait to get my hands on the next book of the series to see what sort of chaos will be my undoing.

Release: 06.27.2018 | Genre: Paranormal Romance/Thriller | Primarily Heroine - 1st person | Heat: 3 | The Vein Chronicles #3