Tag Archives: afterlife

Review: Always Isn’t Forever by J. C. Cervantes

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Paranormal, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , , , ,
Always Isn't Forever by J. C. Cervantes cover shows a girl lying on the deck of a boat in the sun next to a boy lying on the deck of the boat, but it looks as though his half of the image is underwater.

Always Isn’t Forever
J. C. Cervantes
Razorbill
Published June 6, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Always Isn’t Forever

Best friends and soul mates since they were kids, Hart Augusto and Ruby Armenta were poised to take on senior year together when Hart tragically drowns in a boating accident. Absolutely shattered, Ruby struggles to move on from the person she knows was her forever love.

Hart can’t let go of Ruby either…. Due to some divine intervention, he’s offered a second chance. Only it won’t be as simple as bringing him back to life–instead, Hart’s soul is transferred to the body of local bad boy.

When Hart returns to town as Jameson, he realizes that winning Ruby back will be more challenging than he’d imagined. For one, he’s forbidden from telling Ruby the truth. And with each day he spends as Jameson, memories of his life as Hart begin to fade away.

Though Ruby still mourns Hart, she can’t deny that something is drawing her to Jameson. As much as she doesn’t understand the sudden pull, it can’t be ignored. And why does he remind her so much of Hart? Desperate to see if the connection she feels is real, Ruby begins to open her heart to Jameson–but will their love be enough to bridge the distance between them?

My Review

I feel like I’ve seen a lot of books by J. C. Cervantes, but this is the first one I’ve ever read. Since it was compared to YOU’VE REACHED SAM, I really wanted to check it out.

It took me a few chapters to get into the story and really fall in love with Hart and Ruby. I’m not sure why, but once I invested, I felt like it was really easy to enjoy the story.

Some of the mechanics of the plot do require a bit of willing suspension of disbelief. As Jameson, Hart has a super limited amount of time in which he’ll retain his memories of his life as Hart. Once that passes, he’ll have Jameson’s memories but still be Hart in spirit or soul. The rules of Hart’s exchange (his soul in Jameson’s body) state that he can’t tell anyone the truth about who he is and what happened.

There’s a bit of dancing around the edges of those rules and bending them here and there. I think it might be harder to enjoy the story if you needed the spiritual/afterlife side of it to make perfect sense and be perfectly self-consistent.

Fortunately, I found it pretty easy to suspend my disbelief because I wanted to know if and how Ruby and Hart could find one another again. I’m always up for a “Can true love conquer all?” type of story, and this one definitely delivered on that trope.

All in all, I can see fans of YOU’VE REACHED SAM or THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END liking this one. It’s a great light summer book with a sweet love story.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Hart and Ruby are Latine. Ruby’s sister Gabi is in a relationship with another girl.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used somewhat frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. References to sex. Ruby and Hart agreed to wait until college to have sex.

Spiritual Content
Hart meets an angel after his death who gives him a choice to return to life with his soul in the body of someone else.

Ruby’s sister Gabi has a tarot card deck made for her by Ruby’s aunt. When she does a reading with this deck, Gabi senses her ancestors speaking to her. The readings are always insightful and accurate.

Violent Content
Vague descriptions of a drowning death. Vague descriptions of a motorcycle accident. A player is injured during a game of football.

Drug Content
Hart learns Jameson was under the influence of alcohol when he crashed his motorcycle. Jameson drank a lot of alcohol, but Hart doesn’t.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of ALWAYS ISN’T FOREVER in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Brink of Darkness by Jeff Giles

Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,

The Brink of Darkness
Jeff Giles
Bloomsbury
Published on July 3, 2018

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About The Brink of Darkness
Things have changed for seventeen-year-old Zoe ever since the otherworldly events that brought her together with the mysterious bounty hunter she calls X. In order to save Zoe and her family, X has done the unthinkable – he’s given up his freedom and returned to captivity in the Lowlands.

X is determined to break the lords’ hold on him once and for all, but being stripped of his power pushes him toward a darkness he’s never experienced and a past he’s never known. The secrets that surface could be the key to reuniting X and Zoe… or they could mean the destruction of everything they have been fighting for.

My Review
So many great lines! Pretty much any section told from Zoe’s point-of-view is packed with fantastic side comments and banter between her and her friends. X’s sections aren’t quite as peppery, but I loved the Ukrainian for all his snarky one liners.

So much heart. The Brink of Darkness is, above all else, a story about true love. Both the love between X and Zoe and love of family—birth family, and family you make for yourself.

I struggled with the amount of violence portrayed in this book. Some scenes show graphic torture and reference some pretty horrible events. If I didn’t like the other elements of the story so much, I don’t think I could have finished it. Even though I did, this probably isn’t a good choice for sensitive readers. If I had known how much was in the book, I probably wouldn’t have tried to review it.

Which isn’t to say I’m sorry I read it. I don’t know. I’m really torn. I really didn’t like the amount of violence, but I am a total sucker for a book with great banter and such fun characters. I’m glad it had that quality. See my comments below for additional notes on content.

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Cultural Elements
Zoe’s best friend Val is a lesbian. Zoe’s family members are vegans.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Infrequent use of strong profanity. One odd thing about the book is the lowercase use of “god” throughout the whole story, even when spoken by a priest.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between man and woman. References to sex, but no description. (Two people lie down in a boat together. They remove shirts and then the scene cuts away from them.)

Spiritual Content
The Lowlands (sort of like Hell) is a place where people who’ve committed heinous acts find themselves in the afterlife. It’s governed by lords who have some supernatural powers, but are themselves dead humans. Several characters reference a Higher Power (capitalized in the story) who is ultimately in charge, but only intervenes in the direst situations.

I found it odd that the story uses a lowercase for God versus uppercase for the Higher Power of the Lowlands.

Violent Content
So. Much.

Several scenes show torture in pretty graphic detail. The methods used to punish inhabitants of the Lowlands are pretty harsh. This is not one for sensitive readers. I had a really hard time with some of the descriptions and skimmed over a couple passages. At one point X is under the governance of a woman who thrives on torturing others. That part was too much for me.

Drug Content
None.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.