Review – The Forever Song (Blood of Eden, Book 3) by Julie Kagawa (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Horror/Dystopia
Length: 416 pages
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release Date: April 15, 2014
ISBN-13: 978-0373211128
Stand Alone or Series: 3rd book in the Blood of Eden series
Source: eGalley from NetGalley.com
Rating: 4/5 stars
This was the third and final book in the Blood of Eden series by Kagawa. This was a good end to this series. There is a lot of action here and the story is engaging. I still haven’t enjoyed this series as much as Kagawa’s Iron Fey series.
Allie, Kanin, and Jackal are trying to track down Sarren. Allie wants to get her revenge for what he did to Zeke, but there is more at stake. They need to catch up to Sarren before he unleashes a virus that would wipe out humanity and vampires alike. Unfortunately things go from bad to worse when they figure out that Sarren is headed to Eden, the last vampire-free zone on Earth.
The action in this series is pretty much non-stop…almost to the point of repetitiveness at times. At times it feels like the characters are jumping from one battle to the next battle, mostly fighting Ferals as they go. This worked okay for the story, but as I mentioned it got a bit repetitive at points.
Allie has changed a lot in this series. In this book she changes even more. In the beginning of the book she has decided to embrace her monster and start to take lessons from Jackal on how to live her vampiric life. This is a large disappointment to Kanin. However, Allie still delivers some surprises as the story continues and she continues to change and evolve in an effort to reconcile her personal beliefs with her vampiric status.
Kanin remains as mysterious as ever. We learned some of what drives him in this book and there are some excellent revelations around his character well.
Jackal…well he is Jackal. He is darkly hilarious and insulting and obnoxious just like normal. He honestly adds a lot of humor and snark to this book, he is kind of the comic relief. However, he also shows surprising depth at certain times throughout this book.
Kagawa doesn’t shy away from the ugly parts in this book and there are quite a few on them. Sarren leaves a trail of dead and tortured for Allie to follow and it’s not pretty. Some parts are pretty gruesome. This book definitely trends more towards horror than paranormal. There is a lot of swearing as well (just a heads up for those who are concerned about that).
There is a lot I can’t talk about in this book because of spoilers. Let’s just say there are some huge twists in the plot that will keep readers guessing. I enjoyed them all. The series ends well and on a hopeful note.
Overall I enjoyed this book. It does get a bit repetitive but I efnjoyed the characters, the fast pace, and some of the twists and turns throughout. I think fans of the series will be pleased, there are a number of excellent twists in the story and it moves at a fast pace that will have readers on the edge of their seat. I am excited to read Kagawa’s next series which starts with the book Talon and is supposed to release in October 2014.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Series Reading Challenge
– Ebook Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– 100 Books in a Year Reading Challenge
