Review #25: Eternal Eden, by Nicole Williams

I think I found Eternal Eden on the 99 cent list. I know better. The 99 cent list should be banned. First of all, nothing good is 99 cents, except for the iced tea I get every morning at my secret Dunkin' Donuts. Second of all, the only time you should pay 99 cents for a book is either a) at a yard sale, in which case it should be two for a dollar, or b) at the Friends of the Library bookstore, in which case you should pony up the extra penny becuase it's for a good cause.

Anyway, I downloaded it, because I never learn. And I've been on this weird YA kick lately, and this looked semi-YA, because they were in college, and it made me feel less weird reading YA books than when I read YA books about high school kids.

Our story starts with Bryn, who is starting her first day at Oregon State University (go Beavers?). She immediately meets dreamy William Hayward, which pisses off the mean girls. Bryn has a dark secret, plus she has zero self-esteem, and she can't understand why William's got the hots for her. But you see, William has a secret, too! Turns out he's Immortal. And he's been looking for Bryn for almost 200 years. It's like it's meant to be, and she must fall just as in love with him as he with her.

Ah, but trouble awaits the young lovers! The Council of Big Fat Jackass Immortals has rules, and one of those rules is that Immortals can't love Mortals. The goon squad shows up to threaten Bryn and William in a bizarre mafia-esque middle of the night attack, and William decides to leave Bryn "for her own safety". Bryn, distraught over the loss of William, wanders in to the ocean to escape...

...and wakes up days later in a mansion owned by John, the head of the Council of Big Fat Jackass Immortals. Turns out, William loves Bryn so much that he knew she was dying, and he just had to save her, and the only way to do that was to turn her Immortal. Bryn, because she's an idiot, isn't mad about this, not when William tells her that she's not allowed to have kids, not when she discovers she can no longer go back to her former life, and not when William tells her that the Council is going to make all her decisions - including who she's going to be Immortally Married to for the rest of her life. Bryn's a little bit dumb (clearly), and she doesn't figure out till about 200 pages after the reader that John wants her to marry him, not William. William figures it out about thirty seconds before Bryn does, and now they have to figure out how to escape from the mansion.

There's more but I'm not going to bore you. I'll just go right to the end, where the book just...ends. When I bought this thing, I didn't realize that it was a trilogy. The frst rule of a trilogy is that the books should stand on their own. This one practically ends mid-sentence. I'm sure that's because Williams wants me to buy the other two books, but... no way. I've got too many other things to read.