Review: Lifeblood – Gena Showalter

Posted 15 February, 2017 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 15 Comments

*I received a free copy of Lifeblood from via Netgalley. This has in no way influenced my voluntary review, which is honest and unbiased *

Review: Lifeblood – Gena ShowalterLifeblood Series: Everlife #2
on 28 February 2017
Pages: 443
2.5 Stars

My Firstlife is over, but my Everlife is only now beginning.

With her last living breath, Tenley "Ten" Lockwood made her choice and picked her realm in the Everlife. Now, as the war between Troika and Myriad rages, she must face the consequences.

Because Ten possesses a rare supernatural ability to absorb and share light, the Powers That Be have the highest expectations for her future—and the enemy wants her neutralized. Fighting to save her Secondlife, she must learn about her realm from the ground up while launching her first mission: convincing a select group of humans to join her side before they die. No pressure, right?
But Ten's competition is Killian, the boy she can't forget—the one who gave up everything for her happiness. He has only one shot at redemption: beating Ten at a game she's never even played. As their throw-downs heat up, so do their undeniable feelings, and soon, Ten will have to make another choice. Love…or victory.

Lifeblood didn’t fully live up to my expectations, as Ten didn’t seem the same, strong, independent girl she was in Firstlife.

Review - (un)Conventional Bookviews

In the first book, Ten, while not being exactly decisive, did manage to be quite independent once she escaped the institution she was locked up in. I had quite high hopes for Lifeblood, seeing Ten deal with her afterlife, living in a realm different from the boy she had spent a lot of time with – one who was protecting her and fighting alongside her until the end. What got to me was that for a lot of the time, Ten was mooning over Killian rather than getting to know Troika and the Troikans she was supposed to spend eternity with. She was not working very hard at unlocking her key to the grid, nor at understanding just how her realm worked. She was quite judgemental, and I found her to be a lot less interesting than she was in Firstlife.

There was some action, with fights between the realms, and fights over humans who were unsigned. I just didn’t feel like I was involved in any of it in Lifeblood. The realms were less interesting, and I found the characters to be a lot flatter than those I met in the first book. It could be that this one suffers from second book syndrome, and I will definitely pick up the next book in the series, but my expectations will be lowered accordingly before I get to it.

Lifeblood was in many ways just more of the same as in Firstblood, though. The realms fighting over humans, and also fighting each other. Light and dark, good and evil *sighs* just that here, Ten was not human anymore, she was a spirit. And she was a lot less discerning of the people around her, not understanding that because they were all spirits, they weren’t really different from what they had been as humans. She remembered her life from before, but it didn’t seem to me as if she had really learned anything from it. And she didn’t appear to realise that all other Troikans also held on to who they had been as humans.

Written in first person point of view from Ten’s perspective, I think it made it worse because I really didn’t enjoy her very much in Lifeblood. It was not fun to be in her head, and even with the dialogues and the action, the story didn’t really work well for me.

Fave Quotes - (un)Conventional Bookviews

My worth isn’t measured by other people’s feelings for me. I am who I am, and my worth is my worth.

Those dreams… They can mean one of two things: something or nothing.

Love that comes with strings isn’t love. It’s just another form of selfishness, liking what the other person can do for you or make you feel.

Lifeblood didn't live up to (un)Conventional Bookview 's expectations Click To Tweet

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Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms

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.

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15 responses to “Review: Lifeblood – Gena Showalter

  1. Oh boy! I’m sorry this didn’t live up to your expectations, wifey. It’s awful that this seems to have been a filler book – suffering the second book syndrome. The story seems to have had a great foundation and didn’t build upon it. That’s too bad. And I don’t understand the change in Ten. That’s weird. Well, I’ll wait to pass judgement (ha!) on the series as a whole after seeing what you think of the next one.
    Happy Wednesday, wifey! Enjoy your day!!! *LOVE* & {{{BIG HUGS}}}

    Bookworm Brandee recently posted: Review ~ Kaleidoscope ~ Kristen Ashley
  2. Uh oh..not for me. I don’t read this kind of book as a rule, but after your review it’s a no way for me. Personally, I would have a hard time reading another in the series when there are just so many good books out there. However, I can tell you really liked the first one so I understand, second book syndrome and all : )

  3. I’d think Showalter is immune from sequel slumps, alas she’s mortal like us. Hopefully the next one will pick up otherwise following this series will feel like a waste of time.

    I hope you’re having a blast in Norway!

  4. A shame that this one didn’t quite pan out to be everything you hoped it could’ve been. It’s a shame to know it’s kind of more of the same, and that the main character loses some of her backbone from the first book. I can’t stand it when the main characters get distracted by a guy and the plot line kind of gets ignored because of it :/

    Olivia Roach recently posted: Bluff [Book Review & Giveaway!]

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