Review: Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

Unearthly by Cynthia Hand
Published: January 4, 2011
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 435 (Hardcover)
Series: Unearthly #1
Source: Library
My Rating: 3 of 5 stars

In the beginning, there's a boy standing in the trees . . . .
Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood run through her veins not only makes her smarter, stronger, and faster than humans (a word, she realizes, that no longer applies to her), but it means she has a purpose, something she was put on this earth to do. Figuring out what that is, though, isn't easy.

Her visions of a raging forest fire and an alluring stranger lead her to a new school in a new town. When she meets Christian, who turns out to be the boy of her dreams (literally), everything seems to fall into place and out of place at the same time. Because there's another guy, Tucker, who appeals to Clara's less angelic side.

As Clara tries to find her way in a world she no longer understands, she encounters unseen dangers and choices she never thought she'd have to make between honesty and deceit, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny?

Unearthly is a moving tale of love and fate, and the struggle between following the rules and following your heart. 

After seeing such high ratings for this book and hearing everyone rave about how fantastic this series is, I caved and borrowed the book from the library. It seems that all the hype surrounding this book made my expectations too high.

I don't consider myself an expert on angels and demons, but I've watched Supernatural and read enough books to get the gist. Every author seems to handle the whole angel, nephilim, demon, and fallen angel thing differently. Unearthly is definitely one of the best angel books I've read in a long time, but not the best. I enjoyed the part about the purpose for the angel-bloods or nephilim and I really liked how the Black Wings radiated sadness due to their fall. The mythology and lore part of the book was amazing, but I think the book fell a bit flat with a few of the characters.

I fully expected to love Clara. I'd heard that she was just plain awesome, but I must have been reading a different book from everyone else because most of the time I wasn't a fan of Clara. It was strange how she practically stalked Christian. Yes I understand that it was for her purpose, but her knowing so much about him without actually knowing him didn't sit right with me. Then there's the fact that she's immediately enemies with Christian's girlfriend. Kay wasn't exactly nice to Clara, but she wasn't really nasty either. Clara basically hated her because she was dating Christian. I also didn't like how Angela kept encouraging Clara to go after Christian and she kept saying that it was her destiny.

I wasn't a big fan of Christian, mainly due to the incident a prom and how he's way too prefect. Clara's friends describe him as a god and perfect in every way. I can't stand perfect characters. I love characters that have flaws and develop as the the story progresses. Which is probably why I love Tucker. Tucker may have been a bit rude to Clara in the beginning, but I ended up liking him much more by the end. He's just a normal guy and he's extremely sweet. The story didn't get interesting until Tucker came along.

This book wasn't amazing, but it also wasn't horrible. I will most likely end up reading the next book, mainly because I want to know what happens to Tucker and why Christian was Clara's purpose.