Book Review: Unearthly

TITLE: Uneartly
Book 1 in the Unearthly Trilogy
AUTHOR: Cynthia Hand
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: urban fantasy, angels, romance
PREMISE: Clara is a part guardian angel who is trying to find her charge and learn her purpose.
MY REVIEW: Okay, before I start things I just want to take a moment to gush about that cover. Internet pics don't do it justice, it's even prettier in person. This is possibly my favorite cover of the year and we haven't even gotten halfway through yet. Now book. This is the first book I read for the 2011 debut challenge and for a first book it's pretty good. However, I do think people are going a tad overboard with the praise for this book because there were a few issues.
One being that Clara could get really annoying sometimes, particularly when she was gushing over Christian. Seriously, I am tired of girls who wax poetic about guys. Just say he's hot and get it over with because that's what most girls nowadays do. Second issue was that this was not free of tropes and I sort of found the ending a bit predictable. Granted there were still one or two surprises and there were refreshing things in it like, Clara actually has a parent who's involved and actually cares about her family! She also isn't amazingly popular from day one or constantly picked on. Nor did she angst about how plain she was when it's clear she isn't plain. Plus, as always, the angel stuff was a little funky and probably didn't at all follow the mythology but I've pretty much given up any hope of a angel book actually following angel mythology period. If they followed mythology, the angels wouldn't fall in love and there'd be no romance and then they'd be less interesting to teens. Also, I would have liked for Clara to have a bit more of a defined personality because she seriously flip-floped all over the place. One minute she was fun and kind of bad-ass, the next she was angsty and super-girly and concerned with her love life. It was annoying because I couldn't figure out who she was as a person. But I'm chalking this up to the hectic time in her life and hoping in the next book Hand defines her character more.
But other then that, this is a very solid book and pretty impressive for a first book. It isn't perfect and not the mind blowing book everyone keeps saying it is. But it's definitely worth a look, especially if you're into this whole angel thing. Me, I'm still trying to figure out if I like the angel trend or not. I think I honestly still don't get it and can take them or leave them. But if more angel books wind up like this one (or the awesome looking Angelfire) then I may turn into a fan.
WHO SHOULD READ: Angel fans, fans of Hush Hush or Fallen
MY RATING: Four out of Five glowing angel wings