Official Review: The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller

[Alexandra Bayer]

Haven Moore has always had visions of a past life that she led as a girl named Constance in the early 1900s, where she was in love with a boy named Ethan. The only problem is that growing up in the religious town of Snope City, Tennessee, her visions were seen as marks of the devil. She was forced to repress them and grow up labelled a freak with only one friend: fellow outcast Beau Decker, who was forced apart for being gay. For a while, Haven's visions stopped. But when she saw famous Iain Morrow on television, a vision was brought on. Could Iain be Ethan, reincarnated? How will she ever know if she doesn't escape to New York to see him? Her grandmother won't let her go, however, and Haven is still underage. It will take a lot of planning and manipulation to be able to escape from her life as a pariah, and even if she makes it to New York, there's no guarantee Iain will be Haven's soul mate. But if there's one thing she's learned in her past lives, it's to take chances and pursue your dreams. And that's just what Haven will have to do if she has any chance of living a happy, normal life - at least, as normal as a reincarnated girl can be.

I found the beginning of this book to be quite dull. However, as soon as Haven made it to New York, everything became much more interesting. The only drawback is that it took a while before Haven actually was in New York. After the first few chapters, I enjoyed the book more; however, I wish she'd been able to get to New York sooner in the storyline. I also assumed that since Iain Morrow was famous, they would do celebrity things together once they met, such as red carpets and movie premieres. This turned out to be untrue, which somewhat disappointed me.

I was very impressed by the complexity of this storyline. All of the past lives were very well planned out, as well as the characters' personalities. Even though Haven switched between who she was trusting several times throughout the story, I was never confused or unsure of as to why she no longer believed a certain person. However, she did make a lot of assumptions, most of which were untrue. If she'd been more open-minded yet logical, she wouldn't have had most of her dilemmas - however, I suppose then the book wouldn't have been as interesting. Although she appeared to be an intelligent character, these narrow-minded conclusions somewhat contradicted that seemingly obvious fact. One would think that after being judged so much back in Snope City, she wouldn't be so quick to judge others. However, that may be just what caused her to do so.

Kirsten Miller did quite well at ensuring characters' names were well associated with who they were throughout the storyline. So many other authors introduce a wide range of characters, all of which take me almost the entire story to figure out who plays what part. Despite the variety of characters in this novel, I was almost never confused by who was who, a feat that very few other authors have managed to do. I think that because I read so many books in usually short amounts of time, the sheer amount of characters makes them difficult for me to recall. However, I was very impressed by the fact that Miller was able to make her characters stick in my mind. Not only could I remember who played what role while I was reading, but I can still remember each important characters' first and last names. I will probably be able to for some time to come, as well. This means that the book has impacted me, which then leads to me giving it a higher rating.

Despite the somewhat uninteresting beginning, I ended up very much enjoying this novel. I don't read a lot of books that involve reincarnation, but this book almost made it seem plausible. I need a book to seem realistic for me to enjoy it, and despite that fact that this book dealt with fictional concepts, it made them appear very real. I would give this book a rating of four stars. I finished it very quickly, and was a great follow-up to the last book I read, which I didn't enjoy as much. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for reincarnation, romance, and betrayal.

[verymuchmeg]

Kirsten Miller is my favorite living author. I love her Kiki Strike books, her blog, and How To Lead A Life Of Crime, so I was very surprised that I didn't enjoy this series. I'm very excited to see what she's currently cooking up with Jason Segel.

[littlebook]

I am reading The Eternal Ones right now actually. I really liked your review. I have approximately 100 pages left.