Soul Back - Butterfly Boucher

Eternal
Tantalize, Book 2

Author: Cynthia Leitich Smith
Pages: 307
Publisher: Candlewick

Brief Summary:
Zachary is a guardian angel and his job is to look after Miranda, subtly guiding her to a good path until her life runs its course. Unfortunately, once she grew up, he kind of fell in love with her too. So when he sees the shadow that means imminent death around her, he is freaked. And when he sees her about to die, without thinking, he makes himself visible to her and saves her life. For a little while anyway. Instead of her death by natural causes, his action results in her being turned into a vampire and his being kicked out of heaven. Now he has one chance to get his wings back: kill Dracula (the current one, not the Stoker one...it's a title) and get what remains of her soul back on track.

Review:
My first time through Eternal I was really disappointed, since I'd really enjoyed Tantalize. Now, though, coming in with somewhat lowered expectations I was, largely, pleasantly surprised. This is not to say that I now think this is the best book ever, but I did think it was an interesting read.

Actually, there definitely was quite a lot frustrating about this book and pretty much all of it can be summed up in one word: Miranda. I hate just about everything about her. After she's turned into a vampire princess against her will, she just rolls with it. She happily eats people and calls the creepy, power-mad vampire who turned her Father, because that helps him fulfill his delusion. Miranda is entirely vapid, conceited and selfish.

Smith tries to set her up as an object of pity by showing her friend Lucy's devotion to her, by showing Zachary's love for her, and by suggesting she had a rough home life. The only one of these that's working for me is Lucy. Miranda's fate doesn't sadden me, but her best friend's does, desperately hoping that her friend has not died because of her desire to flirt. Zachary I actually find to be a somewhat interesting character, but his love for her is both creepy (what with the whole guardian angel, watching her grow from a child to a teen, watching her sleep thing) and ridiculous (she sucks [punned!], so why love her?). And, as for her rough home life, her parents got a divorce. Not to say that that is not painful, but her mother still loves her, and her dad, though distant, buys her awesome presents (now who's selfish? haha).

If you like Maggie Stiefvater's books, you may want to give Cynthia Leitich Smith a try. They have a lot of commonalities, I feel. Both have really clever ideas for paranormal YA romances and both write incredibly obnoxious female main characters. With both books I've read so far, I feel like the stories would have been so much more interesting had they focused on the male characters more.

Rating: 2/5

"I think I'd like my soul back

And only now I find I lost it
At all
Some how
You think you're fine
Until you land
On stones
And then you try to think what pushed you
I'll confess
I'm a mess inside
All my fun fell out.
...I think I'd like my soul back."