In The Eternity Cure, Allie is off on a quest to rescue her mentor Kanin from (cue much-overused-nickname) "Psycho Vamp" Sarren. Allie is basically following her sire bond (sorry, some Vampire Diaries terminology creeping in there) like a compass, trying to locate Kanin before Sarren can break him. Except this compass actually leads her to find Jackal, and somewhere along the way the search for Kanin merges with looking for the cure for a new strain of Red Lung virus.
As exciting and action-packed as this book was, I have to be completely honest - I didn't enjoy The Eternity Cure as much as The Immortal Rules. I still really liked it, but for me, it definitely suffers from Second Book Syndrome.
Firstly, I really liked the emotional arc of Book 1. I thought Allie's struggle to remain 'human' despite her new Vampire-ness was really well done in the first book. And while she still goes through some of that in The Eternity Cure, we don't see that struggle nearly as much. Maybe it was just the nature of her progress, but still - it seemed like a lot of the heart and emotionality (is that a word?) that resulted from Allie protecting Zeke's group in Book 1 was absent here.
Also, I went into The Eternity Cure expecting to love Jackal, based on other reviewers' enjoyment of his snarky attitude. But for some reason he never clicked for me, and I found myself being just as annoyed with him as Allie most of the time. I often felt like he was too obviously The Comic Relief and had little other purpose. However, after the events at the end of the book, he's finally growing on me, and I'm excited to see his character more in Book 3.
Finally, while the pacing in this book was great, and Kagawa's fight scenes continue to be some of my favorites, the plot itself didn't really grab me. For some reason it reminded me of the sort of classic "traveling quest" device used a lot in fantasy books. You know, Our Hero has to go on a Treacherous Jouney to fulfill his Epic Quest, and along the way there are many Coincidences that lead to All Plot Points Being Related, and a Final Confrontation With the Big Baddie at the end. Even though it was never really predictable per se, I still felt like it had a very similar feeling to stuff I've read before, which makes me feel kind of "meh" about it, in hindsight.
That being said, I loved the ending. The events that occur in the last couple chapters gave me ALL THE FEELS. I can't rate the rest of the book any higher than 3.5, but I would give the ending 4.5 stars if I could. There is a GREAT cliffhanger (which I kind of saw coming but I don't care), and it left me absolutely dying to find out what will happen in Book 3!
In conclusion...
Despite my issues with the plot and the emotional side of things, The Eternity Cure is still an action-packed page-turner that should satisfy most fans of The Immortal Rules. Zeke and Allie shippers won't be disappointed either - I can't say much about them except that I love them and I totally ship it. But be warned - the cliffhanger will have you clamoring for Book 3! ;)
_________________________________________
{ This review can also be found at my blog, There were books involved... }