Review: The Forever Song

Book three of the Blood of Eden trilogy
By Julie Kagawa
Available now from Harlequin Teen
Review copy
Read my reviews of The Eternity Cure, The Iron Daughter, and Grim

Julie Kagawa brings her Blood of Eden trilogy to a fitting conclusion, full of action, grief, love, and sacrifice.  Somehow, when I started the book, I thought Kagawa would instantly find a loophole to make the ending of THE ETERNITY CURE all better.  But she doesn't, and heroine Allie has give up struggling with her vampiric nature in her despair.

Allie, along with her mentor Kanin and brother Jackal, are traveling to stop mad vampire Sarren before he can make it to Eden and unleash a virus to kill all humans and vampires.  Unfortunately for them, Sarren is mad like a fox.  I truly enjoy the quasi-familial relationship that the three share, so it was nice to spend quite a bit of time with them on their journey.  It's also interesting to see how three people can pursue the same course while motivated for such different reasons.

I really didn't like Kagawa's faerie series (I quit halfway through the second book), so it's kind of amazing to me how much I loved this trilogy.  I thought it mixed post-apocalyptic fiction with vampire lore very well, creating something that played with the tropes of both without being the same old same old.  The strong characterization and relationships are also a highlight.  The romance is front and center (this is a Harlequin imprint), but it's certainly not the only relationship explored.

I definitely would read THE IMMORTAL RULES and THE ETERNITY CURE before diving into THE FOREVER SONG.  It doesn't spend any time explaining what is happening to new readers.  It is entirely focused on moving the story forward to the conclusion.  I think this trilogy finishes strong, for those who have been waiting for the reaction to the final book to start.  The science is terrible, but I can forgive that in a vampire book.  Especially in a vampire road-trip trilogy.