Forever Obsession: Sojourner

ISBN: 1448681251

Pages: 240

Appearance:

Summary:

Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Moon has been dreaming of her murder her entire life, and in those dreams, a dark presence is there, watching. When she returns home to Hauser’s Landing, the very place her father disappeared, she comes in contact with a gorgeous boy named Lev Walker, and it’s not long before she’s falling in love. But there’s something wrong with Lev. When she realizes he’s the eerie watcher in her dreams, she’ll have to discover the truth. Is he a guardian angel or a sojourner, an angel of death who has come to collect her soul?

Hey guys! Today I've got a review of a super sweet and cute story that really takes the quote "Soul mates always find each other" (Goddess of Light) to the max. Anyway, let's get into it!

Elizabeth Moon is a halfie, half white and half Native American. Her parents died when she was really young and she's being raised by their best friend, Jimmy. Due to unknown circumstances, they have now moved back to her parents hometown and she meets a boy. Now a lot of people have made the connection of this book to Twilight and I can see why they think that, but in my point of view, this is a lot better. Yes, it does have a new girl and mysterious guy that meet and fall in love almost instantly, but there's a whole new dilemma than just vampires.

Racism. Yeah, didn't quite see that coming did you? Like I said before, Lizzie is half Native American which puts her in "different" category in a 99% white town. On her first day, her locker was hacked into and the hacker left a message which I don't remember but was somewhere along the lines of: Boo you're native. To put it nicely. What scares her and Jimmy the most is that before her father's disappearance, he also received these messages. Racism has been pretty popular in American culture literally forever and while everyone is all about equality between blacks and whites, sometimes we forget that Native Americans were targeted just as much as the Africans. The way that Maria Rachel Hooley reminds us of that fact is just amazing and completely unexpected.

Now we come to Lev. He's been popping up in Lizzie's dreams for a while and they're not pleasant dreams because she ends up dying every single time so you can imagine the shock when she sees him in her high school. He's pretty freaked as well because he was cursed by the boss of angels to love but never truly love? Let me explain. He's a sojourner, if someone dies, he takes them to heaven, hell, wherever. He is not exactly Mr. Lovable so to teach him the importance of love, he was assigned Lizzie's soul and every time they met, something would happen (in addition to falling in love) and she would die. So that's a little spoiler of why he's Mr. Reclusive, but I had to mention it.

Moving on with the romance, Lev knows that after they meet, it's only a matter of time before Lizzie dies. After experiencing the pain of losing her for a couple generations, he's willing to sacrifice his own life to save hers. Remember the threats I told you about? Those freak the heck out of him because that could contribute to death. The ending, the stalker/killer/bad guy was totally unexpected and out of the blue. I agree with some readers that I wish we could have seen a bit more from his perspective which might be because I read way too many serial killer novels, but other than the threats and little attack, there isn't a lot of character in the killer. When they do come face to face, you do learn of the reason behind everything, but I still think the killer lacked character.

The ending was a bit predictable which is a first considering I'm very naive when it comes to the truth, the ending, etc. But, that didn't mean it was any less heartbreaking and difficult to handle. That might have just given away what happened, but in my defense I didn't out-rightly state it. :)

Other than that, I really liked this book and I would recommend it. I got this on Kobo for free and I checked and B&N + Amazon are free as well so check it out and let me know you think!!