If I Should Die by Amy Plum

Summary: I will not lose another person I love. I will not let history repeat itself.

Vincent waited lifetimes to find me, but in an instant our future together was shattered. He was betrayed by someone we both called a friend, and I lost him. Now our enemy is determined to rule over France’s immortals, and willing to wage a war to get what they want.

It shouldn’t be possible, none of it should be, but this is my reality. I know Vincent is somewhere out there, I know he’s not completely gone, and I will do anything to save him.

After what we’ve already fought to achieve, a life without Vincent is unimaginable. He once swore to avoid dying—to go against his nature and forsake sacrificing himself for others—so that we could be together. How can I not risk everything to bring my love back to me?

Review: I really enjoyed the final book in this trilogy. It had all the elements I expect from a good conclusion with no loose ends. I also loved that there was a little epilogue which jumped five years in the future so I got to glimpse the characters’ lives later on. It’s something I always want more of in books.
The only thing I didn’t love about this book was that it was really predictable. I couple of the big twists were things I saw coming since the first book so nothing surprised me. Now, this isn’t a huge problem for me personally. I’m one of those weird people who frequently reads the ends of books before I start them so I have no aversion to spoilers. However, it’s always nice when a story surprises you and I didn’t get that here. That being said, it wasn’t so predictable that reading it became tedious. It was more the larger plot points that I guessed but the small details surrounding them were unique enough to keep the story interesting.
I continued to love Kate more and more up until the end. The end of the last book was so traumatizing for her, especially since it hasn’t been all that long since her parents died, but she didn’t let it destroy her. She kept pushing past it to try to find a solution because she refused to accept that this was her and Vincent’s fate. I really admired her strength throughout this book.
As for Vincent, my feelings for him are pretty much the same they’ve always been. I like his character, he’s romantic and brave, but I never felt like I got to know him very well. Everything is continuously through Kate’s eyes and they’re so frequently separated that up until the end, Vincent didn’t feel like a very complex character to me. There’s nothing wrong with him; I just didn’t get a chance to love him and I found it a little disappointing.
I really enjoyed how detailed this book was when it came to revenant history. I’ve always enjoyed the way Plum created these supernatural creatures and got to learn so much more about them in this last book. I thought they were extremely unique, with a complex mythology behind them.
Overall, (despite the predictability) I loved this book. It had an interesting plot, fun characters, and excellent supernatural creatures. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes YA or paranormal, particularly if you enjoy a little romance. I’d love to hear your own thoughts on this series. Thanks for reading!
-Antonia

 

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Until I Die by Amy Plum

Summary: Kate and Vincent have overcome the odds and at last they are together in Paris, the city of lights and love.

As their romance deepens there’s one question they can’t ignore: How are they supposed to be together if Vincent can’t resist sacrificing himself to save others? Although Vincent promises that he’ll do whatever it takes to lead a normal life with Kate, will that mean letting innocent people die? When a new and surprising enemy reveals itself, Kate realizes that even more may be at stake—and that Vincent’s immortality is in jeopardy.

In Die for Me, Amy Plum created a captivating paranormal mythology with immortal revenants and a lush Paris setting. Until I Die is poised to thrill readers with more heart-pounding suspense, spellbinding romance, and a cliff-hanger ending that will leave them desperate for the third and final novel in the series.

Review: Let me start by saying I really enjoyed this book and can’t wait to read the third. However, I did not enjoy it quite as much as the first. In my review of Die For Me, I talked about some of the annoying YA tropes that were present in the first half of the book but that it got better by the end. I was hoping this book would continue that way but was a little disappointed to find more of those tropes I dislike so much.
First, after ending the last book with Kate and Vincent being in a good place in their relationship, this one starts with them keeping secrets from each other and continues that way for most of the book. This is something I’m getting really sick of seeing in books. It’s one thing if the relationship isn’t healthy to begin with but making these otherwise honest characters lie to their S/O just to add some sort of challenge to the relationship is seriously aggravating. Kate and Vincent’s relationship is based on the promise to never lie to each other. When she finds out he’s a revenant and starts learning about his world, she specifically asks him to never keep her in the dark about the supernatural stuff even when he only wants to shield her from it. Now he does just that. At first it’s just, “I don’t want to get your hopes up if my idea doesn’t work but I’ll tell you soon” then turns into six weeks later and she knows something’s wrong and she’s scared but he still won’t tell her. This in turn provokes Kate to start keeping things from Vincent. I was kind of sad about all this especially because it meant I didn’t get as much of the romantic Kate and Vincent as in the first book. It seemed they were barely together for half the book.
Another thing I found annoying was something that seems to happen anytime the supernatural is involved. The human’s parent/ guardian finds out and forbids them from seeing each other. I mean, are you serious? If it was a natural progression of the plot I wouldn’t mind but it always feels like it’s thrown in just to add another challenge to the characters’ relationship.
Otherwise I liked this book. I felt that Kate kept growing in the right direction (keeping things from Vincent excluded of course). She’s a lot more sure of herself and starts taking more initiative instead of letting others solve her problems for her. I’m really excited to see how she handles this most recent challenge that was thrown at her at the end of this book.
I still liked Vincent about as much as I did before. The problem is that because he and Kate weren’t together for a lot of this book (and it’s entirely from Kate’s perspective) I didn’t get to know him any better. I was really hoping to learn more about him and I didn’t get that.
I really liked both the plot and setting. It ended on a bit of a cliffhanger and I’m actually really excited about it. Sometimes you can kind of guess how cliffhangers will be resolved in the next book but I have absolutely no idea. I won’t go into detail since it’s a pretty big spoiler but I’ll just say Plum has her work cut out for her fixing this.
I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes YA and paranormal. I’d love to see your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading!
-Antonia

*Please be aware that the book cover on this post is a link to purchase this book through Amazon. Feel free to purchase with our affiliate link (just click on the book cover) to support us!

WWW Wednesday

Hey, bookworms! It’s that day of the week again where we participate in the wonderful bookish post that was formerly hosted by Should be Reading and was recently taken over by Taking on a World of Words. To play along just answer three questions to give an update about what you’re currently reading, going to read next and have read recently. Feel free to leave your answers in the comments or link your post!

What are you currently reading?

Amanda-

ebook – Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa. I don’t know why I haven’t been able to fly through this book. It feels like I’ve been reading it forever. I think it’s because it’s full of Japanese mythology which is a topic unfamiliar to me so I’m reading slowly so I don’t miss anything important.
audiobook – American Gods by Neil Gaiman. This book has been super hard to get through. It’s such a long audiobook and I actually had to return it and then put another hold on it from my library. I’ve made it about halfway through and I’m making more progress on it later today. It’s interesting but a lot of detail so it requires more of my focus than other audiobooks.
physical book – Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. When the final book in this series came out I knew I was going to have to reread the whole series (I like to reread but I also only remembered a few basic details from this series). I’ve finally made the attempt to start the series reread but I plan to read other things and not binge read these books.

Antonia-

I’m currently reading If I Should Die by Amy Plum. This series has exceeded my expectations and I’m really excited to see how it ends.

What did you recently finish reading?

Amanda-

audiobook – Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson. It was fantastic and my review will be posting sometime in the next few weeks.
physical book – Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow. I just finished reading this last night. I have already written the review and it will also be posted in the next few weeks.

Antonia-

I just finished Until I Die by Amy Plum. I’m really enjoying this series so far. You’ll see a review for this one tomorrow.

What do you think you will read next?

Amanda-

ebook – Meant to be Broken by Brandy Woods Snow. I received this in return for an honest review. I’ve heard good things about it and the description sounds super interesting.
audiobook – The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater. This has been on my TBR list forever so when I saw it was available to borrow from my library’s audiobook collection I made sure to grab it.
physical book – Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. This has been on my TBR list for at least a year and I’m trying to make a conscious effort to knock off some of the books that have been on there for a while.

Antonia-

Next I think I’ll read A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. Amanda’s been yelling at me to read this series for forever and I’m excited to finally get around to it.

These are this week’s W’s! What’s your reading update for this week? Let us know your W’s in the comments and thanks for reading!

Die for Me by Amy Plum

Summary: In the City of Lights, two star-crossed lovers battle a fate that is destined to tear them apart again and again for eternity.

When Kate Mercier’s parents die in a tragic car accident, she leaves her life–and memories–behind to live with her grandparents in Paris. For Kate, the only way to survive her pain is escaping into the world of books and Parisian art. Until she meets Vincent.

Mysterious, charming, and devastatingly handsome, Vincent threatens to melt the ice around Kate’s guarded heart with just his smile. As she begins to fall in love with Vincent, Kate discovers that he’s a revenant–an undead being whose fate forces him to sacrifice himself over and over again to save the lives of others. Vincent and those like him are bound in a centuries-old war against a group of evil revenants who exist only to murder and betray. Kate soon realizes that if she follows her heart, she may never be safe again.

 

Review: I had very mixed feelings for the first half of this book but ended up really loving it by the end. When I first saw this book, I thought the idea of revenants- sort of undead guardian angels- was really unique and had to know more but I still approached this book with a little trepidation.
YA can be really hit or miss for me and too many of those YA cliches annoys the crap out of me so I was worried this one would fall under that category. For the first part of the book, it did. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a bad boy. Written well, they can make the best, most swoon-worthy love interests. Written badly, and I want to strangle the protagonist for being stupid over a guy. There was definitely some of that at the beginning. She knows he’s keeping secrets and thinks multiple times that he’s dangerous but still keeps seeing him. There were also some stalker jokes and, while it’s sort of explained away as a revenant thing, there were a few too many for my tastes.
Luckily Kate started to get smarter about it and about halfway through was making choices I approved of. I liked her character from the beginning, her naivete over Vincent excluded. She’s still trying to cope with the trauma of losing both her parents which in her case means shutting down and just going through the motions without really living. Meeting Vincent is what starts to wake her up and I loved watching her sort of evolve into this new person; not quite who she was before the accident but heading in the right direction. I really admired her by the end. She’s been sucked into this supernatural world that she doesn’t fully understand but no matter how scared she is she always tries to help the people around her. She’s a very brave, strong-willed character and I can’t wait to see how she grows in the next books.
I wasn’t sure how much I liked Vincent at the beginning. Most of that stems from my problems with the whole “bad boy” trope but I’m happy to say my opinion of him increased after the story finally got away from all of that. He ended up being really sweet, romantic, and badass all at the same time.
One of my favorite parts was the setting. Paris is not a place I read about often and I frequently struggle to really visualize settings. I think because Plum has lived in Paris and used many real places in the book, it was a lot easier for me to picture where the characters were. Her descriptions were really detailed without those overbearing, page-long paragraphs that we all hate.
I enjoyed the storyline a lot. I think Plum’s idea for the revenants was well thought out and detailed enough that I didn’t feel like I was reading about vague supernatural creatures without any substance. The story was fast paced and nothing felt forced in order to push the characters in a certain direction or create suspense.
Overall I loved this book and am excited to see where the series takes me. I’d recommend this to anyone who likes YA or paranormal. Leave your thoughts in the comments and thanks for reading.
-Antonia

ABC Book Challenge |D|

This week we’re going to talk about books that have the letter D. For those of you that are new to this book challenge, we’re going through the alphabet and talking about memorable books and books still on our TBR lists. Each week we write another post with the next letter in the alphabet.

Read last week’s post here.

This week’s letter – D.

Most memorable books 

Amanda-

Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige – I love a good retelling and this series does not disappoint with a wild retelling of the Wizard of Oz.

Antonia-

The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima – This was a book I got from the library because I had nothing better to read. I didn’t have high hopes for it but I ended up reading it straight through then making emergency trips to multiple libraries to try to find the rest of the series. It’s now one of my all time favorite books.

 

 

Books still on our TBR list

Amanda-

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater – This is the second book in The Raven Cycle series. I haven’t started this series yet, but it’s on my list for this month to do as a buddy read with a bookish friend of mine.

Antonia-

Die for Me by Amy Plum – This is the first book in The Revenants series. I thought the concept sounded really unique and I was excited that it takes place in Paris which is a setting I haven’t often read about.

 

 

These are our picks for the letter D. What are your memorable books with this letter? Do you have any books that you’ve yet to read starting with D? Feel free to leave your answers in the comments!