Teardrop (Teardrop Trilogy, #1)

by Lauren Kate

Seventeen-year-old Eureka’s life is taking on dark undercurrents that don’t make sense . . .

Her mother killed in a freak accident.

Her best friend, Brooks, behaving like a stranger.

And Ander. The boy with eyes like the ocean who is everywhere she goes.

Uncovering her mother’s legacy – a stone, a locket and an ancient tale of romance and heartbreak – Eureka begins to question everything she thought she knew.

Only one thing is certain: everything she loves can be washed away.

• ISBN10: 0552567507
• ISBN13: 9780552567503
• Publish Date: 19 June 2014 (first published 1 January 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK
• Imprint: Corgi Childrens
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 464
• Language: English

Reviews

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

Teardrop starts with a car accident.

In this accident, Eureka loses her mother and her best friend. She’s supposed to die too, but doesn’t, because of a mysterious stranger. She’s blocked this all from her mind, and the only thing therapy has gotten her is really pissed off at her step-mum. We snoop into a useless therapy session with a useless therapist and then Eureka leaves and promptly gets into another car accident.

If I were Eureka, I’d lose my mind. Much like Eureka, car accidents mean devastating loss, and every time I drive it is in complete terror of another one. Just me, I guess. Sooo, she gets hit by this hot guy and freaks out a little, and cries a single tear.

ALMOST.

Hot guy scoops up the tear and puts it in his eye, because that’s not creepy at all.

Then they are in love. Only they can’t tell each other, because, ugh, who falls in love at first sight? (Seriously, OMG, stop it). That sets the tone of the book pretty well.

Eureka isn’t all that bad.

Honestly, if you get past how cheesy she is with Ander or “new” Brooks, she’s a pretty real teen. She’s suffered a trauma, she’s dealing with it, and while I don’t subscribe to her theory that all therapists are useless, she’s behaving in a completely realistic way for a girl whose lost someone she loved passionately and has to readjust to life. On top of that, she also lives with the stigma of a suicide attempt (I DO NOT ENDORSE THIS), and I think that the discussion of that depth of depression is something we don’t see in fiction. And should. Because it’s real.

I actually really enjoyed the bits of Eureka’s life when she wasn’t being a lovesick puppet. She was broken and beautiful and needing a friend very much. But here’s the thing. Eureka isn’t alone. She has her family, who supports her the best they know how. And she’s got Cat. Cat is actually fabulous.

I really really really love the myth of Atlantis. So I’ve got to ask, why does all the fiction about it lead to disappointment?

Okay, so lets talk about Atlantis as its presented in this book. I’ll be as brief and vague as possible.

Atlantis is sunk (obviously, that’s what it does). It got underwater because two lovers ran off on their other lover-peoples and their boat sunk and they got separated and as far as I can tell, someone cried it under the sea? In order to get Atlantis to come back to the surface, it has to be cried to the surface. And when someone from the proper line cries, it causes a monsoon? Honestly not sure how that’s going to work out.

In short, Eureka is Kida and this is a weird Atlantis story. I don’t think the story is going anywhere really interesting? I’m basically just seeing more love triangle and less Atlantis in the future and I’m not really excited about that.

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[reveriesociety_]

I'm gonna go and agree with GR ratings here: It was ok, barely.

I've read Fallen, (only Fallen), and I didn't like it. I didn't think the way Lauren Kate writes is for me, so I just refrained from reading the other books. But then I found this one at my local library.

A girl who can never cry or something bad will happen? Cool!

But I had more than one issue with this book that prevented me from enjoying it.

1. The Insta-Love

Ander has watched Eureka during her whole life. He's learned more things about her than she even knows about herself. I guess, in a weird way, it makes sense he'd be kind of infatuated.

But on Eureka's side, she's just seen this guy, what, two or three times, and then then fourth or fifth she's decided she loves him? What's this?


2. Adults exist to make Eureka look good
Aside from the morbid fact that every adult woman in this book dies, the other adults are only there so Eureka can complain about no one truly understanding her.

3. Eureka's grief
I think this is a delicate topic, since everyone grieves in their own way. I'd never want to know what it's like to lose your mother. But at my own risk, I dare say I don't think I'd act this way. I'd expect this from mother who has lost their child, because that must be like a whole unique kind of hell. But this... an accident? It seemed a bit excessive at times. Especially because it's just Ander the one who she seems to have any interest in being with; a boy she is sure is stalking him, and not her family, or her friends. In a story like this, you cna't have the character being this bland all the time. I kept waiting for her to do something that would make me really root for her, but it never happened.

4. Eureka has problems
*cough* The mental kind *cough* When she confronts Ander about his stalking habits, and he actually admits to them, going so far to detail some things about even her friends, Eureka is like... Well, he's a stalker, but he's cute. So I'm just gonna go to the police station, pretend I'm interested in getting him arrested, and then find some satisfaction in catching him watching me.

5. The disappointment 1
When at one point Brooks, Eureka's best friend tells her everything tht is wrong with her, everything we readers want her to realize and would be willing to hit her with, he's dismissed later. So, where did that all go?!

6. The disappointment 2
Particularly, when shit hits the fan at last, the results are kind of like this:



Instead of




And as a last note, I did not appreciate the story treating the grand revelation of the curse she has as something THAT grand. I mean, seriously, she was given a book where the girl in the story, cries a whole continent to the ocean. Her significant other's name was Leander.

Eureka's mother had always told her not to cry, and she remembers this she reads about the girl but doesn't make any connection?

Wut?

And at considering Leander and Ander all she has to say is: They even had similar names. And continues reading.

*facepalm*

Teardrop has one of the most gorgeous covers I have ever seen. This factor along with its interesting blurb could have made for an amazing story. Unfortunately, Teardrop falls short in so many areas.

The problems start on the second page. The main love interest has a choice to make. He has to either save the world, or save the girl. We already know that he is idiotically going to pick a girl who he knows everything about, is obsessed with and madly in love with, but he hasn't met this girl at all. MAJOR STALKER ALERT!!!

Teardrop is loaded with stereotypes who are all beautiful in one way or another. Eureka, the main character, is extremely difficult for me to relate to and she annoys me so much. She has a bone to pick with almost everyone such as Maya (the mean girl) who isn't as mean as a stereootypical mean girl should be and her "evil" stepmother, Rhonda, who I personally thought was only looking out for Eureka's best interests. At least Eureka has an awesome best friend who provides some much needed comic-relief.

Teardrop also has *drum roll* a love triangle that sprouts out of nowhere between Ander, the major stalker love interest and Brooks, her best friend. No, this doesn't sound familiar at all. One minute, Eureka thinking about how kissing one guy feels so right and a few pages later, she's thinking about the other guy. Her emotions towards both her romantic interests are so confusing.

I did enjoy the interesting concept of Teardrop and the last few pages become interesting.

I started reading this book with hope, put it down for 2 weeks, was almost going to DNF it and decided to read it to the end, in the hope that it could get better. The stereotypical characters and the romance irritates me and the awesome cover and the original concept is the only things that work.

I do have a friend who hates paranormal fantasy, but absolutely adores Teardrop. So, if you aren't deterred by the issues that I had while reading this book, then I would recommend it.

[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

Having loved the Fallen Series over all, despite being disappointed with the last book, I just had to read Teardrop. However, my overall feelings are pretty "meh".

I've never read anything about Atlantis before, and apart from playing the computer game India Jones and the Fate of Atlantis so many years ago that I don't remember much about it, I know nothing about the legend. So I was coming to Teardrop blind, with no expectations. What the book did is whet my appetite for the actual legend, which I'll probably look up at some point, but otherwise, it's a lot like Fallen. By which I mean, you don't really get any answers in this book at all.

There's the ancient tale mentioned above, which Eureka reads in The Book of Love, the story of how Atlantis was flooded, which was left to Eureka in her mother's will. And you discover that Eureka is somehow related to the story. But by the end of the book... we know a few things, that I won't give spoilers about, but they seem hardly worth the length of the book. Seriously, with what we discovered, I don't know why Teardrop is as long as it is. It takes so long for Eureka to ask the right questions, or suspect much of anything. And some of the answers are really quite predictable; you might not know exactly what's happened, but you have an idea. When you know something 200 pages before Eureka does, her cluelessness can cause many an eye-roll. Sure, Kate has a talent for writing a gripping tale you can't put down, desperate to find out the answers to all your why's, but when you get to the end and you're still none the wiser, it's damn frustrating!

It was ok with the Fallen series, because it was her first series, and it seemed exciting and original. But if Kate is going to continue the same formula of revealing nothing for several books, then I'm not sure I see the point in reading them. I am intrigued by the story of Atlantis, and I'm intrigued to see where the story will go after the ending of Teardrop, but if the next book in the series continues to reveal nothing, I think I'm going to give up. I can't be doing with being kept hanging on for years on end. Give us something in the sequel, Kate, please! Otherwise, what's the point in me continuing?

Thank you to Random House Children's Publisher's for the review copy.

[Kelly]

http://www.divabooknerd.com/2013/10/teardrop-by-lauren-kate-arc-review.html
Teardrop is a unique concept, a seemingly normal teenage girl being able to raise the lost city of Atlantis with her tears. Eureka's mental health is fragile and not surprisingly, the breakup of her family unit, her father remarrying a woman who only cares for Eureka enough to completely dictate her life and the heartbreaking death of her mother in a freak accident, in which Eureka escaped. She's withdrawn and lives with survivors guilt. Her father now has two small children and unable to relate to his grieving daughter, allowing his new wife to send her to an assortment of therapists. It's no wonder she barely values her own life. Most readers will be able to relate to Eureka's emotional turmoil, the hopeless struggle we all face at some point. But sadly, Eureka is frustratingly naive and helpless.

Throughout the storyline, it's clear that Eureka should be less accepting and question what is going on around her. Why Brooks, a boy she's known her entire life, suddenly seems like a stranger, why he and Ander clearly have a history and why he shows an unhealthy interest in the ancient text her mother left her. As soon as Ander breezes into Eureka's life, Brooks is suddenly romantically interested. As eighty percent of Teardrop surrounds Eureka's daily life, I only wish a less dense, less judgmental and less annoying character was created.

I really enjoyed the last few chapters, where the villain becomes apparent, the truth about Ander is revealed and the catastrophic climax that ensues, the story fillers were intended for teem readers, who will probably inhale the new potential book boyfriend in Ander. I'm undecided whether I would continue the series, based on whether the second installment is held underwater within the lost city, or not. I wasn't a fan of Lauren Kate's Fallen series, but Teardrop isn't too bad at all for it's intended market.

The mythology is arguably the coolest thing about TEARDROP, but it's also the only cool thing about TEARDROP. The first 100 pages or so is pretty lackluster as all the main characters trot in and out and Eureka (who is called Reka which never stopped conjuring 'stink' in my mind every time I read it) moped through her admittedly unpleasant life in the months following her mother's death. After that the Atlantis twist started to be revealed via an ancient Atlantean diary. Unfortunately, the legend of Atlantis and the new mythology Lauren Kate created wasn't enough to keep the characters and plot afloat.

The characters were probably the anchor that sank TEARDROP. They just weren't interesting despite a few of them having potentially interesting lives. And the three characters involved in the love triangle (Reka, Briggs, and Ander) are plagued by insta-love, destiny love, and a lot of other cliche tropes. Reka was frustratingly indecisive and swept away by appearances when she should have been freaked out. Ander was as captain cardboard as they come and his complete puppy dog devotion bordered on creepy. Briggs was the long time best friend who was not-so-secretly in love with Reka (although she was oblivious) and relied way too much on the back story of their relationship instead of any meaningful interaction in the book to win me over.

There were a few semi interesting twists towards the end, and the Atlantis mythology became more prominent which was nice, but TEARDROP isn't anything more than a pretty cover and a story that doesn't come close to living up to it's subject matter.