Eternal by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Eternal by Cynthia Leitich Smith
"At last, Miranda is the life of the party: all she had to do was die. Elevated by none other than the King of the Mantle of Dracul, she goes from high-school theater wannabe to glamorous fiend overnight. Meanwhile, her guardian angel, Zachary, demoted to human guise as her personal assistant, has his hands full saving his girl’s soul while planning a fast-approaching Death Day gala. In alternating viewpoints, Miranda and Zachary navigate a cut-throat aristocracy as they play out a dangerous, diabolically witty love story for the ages."- summary from Amazon

Smith's sophomore YA novel is a bit of a departure from her first, Tantalize. Whereas Quincey was removed from vampire culture until close to the end, Miranda is thrust into it very close to the beginning. The reader learns about the vampire culture along with Miranda and is sucked into her tale. The story is not just told through her perspective though; the chapters alternate between her and her guardian angel Zachary. I enjoyed the back and forth of perspectives, especially once the two of them were together after Zachary becomes her personal assistant.

The story is very dark and Smith doesn't shy away from making her vampires monstrous and scary, but there are touches of light-heartedness sprinkled throughout. The ones that stick out in my mind are Zachary and Miranda's repartee once they get comfortable around each other, and also a small moment where Archangel Michael directs one of his angels to Yahoo! Maps to find something.

The climax was really fun to read and had me on the edge of my seat and turning pages as quickly as I could to see what happened next. Now, readers be warned, in the summary above, it mentions the love story; this is not going to be your typical love story, and for me, that's fine, as the ending made sense and left me with a feeling of hope. But if you're looking for a sweeping romance like Twilight, this is not the story for you. You have been warned.

Overall though, a very enjoyable novel and I absolutely can't wait to see the two casts from Tantalize and Eternal meet in next year's novel Blessed.