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
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