The Forever Song is the concluding part to the Blood of Eden trilogy and therefore this review may contain spoilers for The Immortal Rules and The Eternity Cure.
It had been two weeks since we’d left New Covington. Two weeks of travel, of walking down endless, snow-covered roads. Two weeks of cold and wilderness and dead, silent towns. Of empty houses wrapped in vines, deserted streets, ancient hulks of cars rusting in the gutters.
Allie has no time to mourn the loss of Zeke. The psychopathic vampire Sarren is determined to wipe out life on earth and he has the means to do it. Together with her sire and her brother, she must get to Eden, to protect the last safe place on earth, before Sarren releases the new strain of the Red Lung virus. Not even vampires are safe any more.
I’ll admit, I was a bit disappointed in The Forever Song, especially considering how much I enjoyed the first two books in the trilogy. It takes so long for anything to happen other than slashing and hacking away at rabids and other assorted foes. Then the first major plot point, character-wise, had me rolling my eyes. It was well past half way when I started to get into the story and I only continued because I wanted to see this story come to a conclusion.
If you’re a big fan of action, you might not mind the first 200 odd pages. It just got a bit repetitive for me. Jackal seemed to take a while to get into his usual wise-cracking self too. I won’t reveal The Thing that annoyed me but I felt it was lazy writing and also led to a lot of unnecessary melodrama. Even Jackal and Kanin started to get a bit tired of the other characters’ behaviour.
Allie, is however coming to terms with being a vampire. She’s no longer reluctant to drink from humans… Is she getting to close to losing her humanity? Was losing Zeke the last straw? I think she’s grown a lot as a character over the books, but it was probably the right time to say goodbye.
You’re probably thinking I hated this book but I really enjoyed the last 150ish pages and the big finale. A shorter book would have been more entertaining and I wonder if Julie Kagawa just ran out of material for it. The trilogy needed an ending but not necessarily a full length novel (that she was most likely contractually obliged to produce).
The Forever Song is published by MIRA Ink and is available now in paperback and ebook editions. Thanks go to the publisher for providing a copy for review.
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Also reviewed @ Tea in the Treetops | Creative Deeds Reads | Reading the Paranormal
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book free of charge for review purposes only. Receipt of a book does not guarantee a review or endorsement. My reviews are my honest opinion and are not biased for the purpose of personal gain.
