*I received a free copy of Unbreakable from Little Brown Books for Young Readers via Netgalley. This has in no way influenced my voluntary review, which is honest and unbiased *
Unbreakable by Kami Garcia Series: The Legion #1
Published by Little Brown Books for Young Readers on 1 October 2013
Genres: Paranormal, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 305
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley
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I never believed in ghosts. Until one tried to kill me.
When Kennedy Waters finds her mother dead, her world begins to unravel. She doesn’t know that paranormal forces in a much darker world are the ones pulling the strings. Not until identical twins Jared and Lukas Lockhart break into Kennedy’s room and destroy a dangerous spirit sent to kill her. The brothers reveal that her mother was part of an ancient secret society responsible for protecting the world from a vengeful demon — a society whose five members were all murdered on the same night.
Now Kennedy has to take her mother’s place in the Legion if she wants to uncover the truth and stay alive. Along with new Legion members Priest and Alara, the teens race to find the only weapon that might be able to destroy the demon — battling the deadly spirits he controls every step of the way.
Suspense, romance, and the paranormal meet in this chilling urban fantasy, the first book in a new series from Kami Garcia, bestselling coauthor of the Beautiful Creatures novels.
Between the insta-lust, the love-triangle featuring two brothers and a Mary-Sue plus the plot that didn’t really make any sense to me – Unbreakable was not really a book for me.
My Unbreakable review:
Sadly, Unbreakable was not a book for me. Most of the tropes I enjoy the least in young adult stories were a part of this one. Dead parents, instant love / lust, a love triangle, and a very bland female main character. It’s actually hard for me to even write this review, I feel like I just don’t want to think about this book anymore. And that makes me really sad, since I’m a big fan of Garcia. And it’s even worse writing a negative review for a book written by an author I usually really enjoy.
To me, Unbreakable is more paranormal romance than urban fantasy, even if I can see some UF elements in the story. I had trouble connecting with Kennedy, she seemed very superficial, and the fact that she just went away with people she didn’t know, and then trusted them so fully made me think she really hadn’t been paying attention to her mother’s warnings. Jared and Lukas were like stock-characters for good and bad, even if neither of them was all good nor all bad, and Priest was the only character I enjoyed reading about. He was the youngest of the crew, very smart, and actually able to invent weapons against demons and ghosts in order to stay safe.
Kennedy’s waffling between Lukas and Jared made me roll my eyes so hard it was difficult to read at times, and of course, because she only knew these kids for a week at most, it was very hard to buy that she had so strong feelings for either of them. Written in first person past tense, I think it took a lot of the supsense out of the story for me, because it was obvious that Kennedy would survive, since she was able to tell me the story from start to finish. I don’t think I’ll be picking up the second book in The Legion series, because Unbreakable just didn’t do it for me.
About Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms
Linda is an English as foreign language teacher and has a Master's degree in English Language and Literature. She's an avid reader, blogger, compulsive one-clicker and a genre omnivore. Ever since she learnt how to read she has been seen with a book or two in her hands everywhere she goes.
Twitter: bmreviewsohmy
Oh no this is horrible news..I have this one and the second one to review..hopefully I will like it more..fingers crossed. 🙂 To bad this one wasn’t for you, hope your next read rocks!
Stormi, I hope you’ll enjoy this much more than I did! I just couldn’t…
Thanks for stopping by 🙂
It is a shame that you couldn’t really get into this one. I am trying to imagine you rolling your eyes hard too! It does sound too much like a PR though. Great honesty girl
I guess I can’t love all the books I read, and because it’s written by Garcia, I was sure I’d enjoy it. Oh well…
Thanks for stopping by, Naomi!
Too bad it didn’t work well for you, Lexxie, but I can see your point and I don’t know if this would be the right book for me, too… Thanks for the honest review!
Thanks for stopping by with kind words, Silvia! It’s always so hard to write reviews for books I didn’t enjoy!
Thank you for this review – even if it was hard to write, it is beneficial to your followers.
I think this was one of the books teased at the end of Dream Dark. Icons was the other. I was so annoyed that the eBook short cost so mush for so little that I did not read either teaser. I’m glad I didn’t.
Thank you again.
It’s never fun to write a negative review, but you are right, it’s still very important to do so 🙂
Thanks for stopping by, Xyra.
Ugh! Just ugh, all the way around. I’m sorry this was such a disappointment, Lexxie. I, too, am a fan of Garcia (& Stohl) and I was excited for this series. It had such promise. And I wondered how Garcia would do outside of the writing team. I guess we now know. It makes me sad as well. Thanks for doing such a wonderful job of explaining why Unbreakable didn’t work for you. And I hope you’re on to better reading! 😉
I’m sorry that we weren’t able to connect this past weekend but I know you enjoyed all your kiddos’ activities. I still think the circus is fantastic! I wish we had something like that here. Anyway, I hope your week is off to a grand start. I’m working THREE days this week…I asked my boss did she not realize she’s cutting into my reading time?!? But I get to be around books all day so it’s not so bad. 🙂 **BIG HUGS**
I can’t believe it’s taken me almost a week to reply to your comment, Brandee! I am so busy these days I don’t even know where to start…
I’m sure you found some new and exciting books while working last week *grins* I just could never work in a bookstore 🙂 My whole salary would probably be spent at work!
Thanks for stopping by, my dear. *BIG HUGS*