Blog Tour Review + Playlist: Unchosen by Michele Vail

Title: Unchosen (The Reaper Diaries #2)
Author: Michele Vail
Publisher: A Freeman Publication
Release Date: October 29, 2013
Source: eARC provided for tour

Goodreads Summary:

I thought the worst of my reaper training was behind me… turns out I was wrong. Dead wrong. 

Molly Bartolucci has done a lot of growing up but after being accused of using illegal magic at her school for necromancers, reaper-in-training Molly is treading lightly. As the destined leader of Anubis’s Chosen, she needs to study hard, train harder, and stay out of trouble. 

Uh, right. 

It doesn’t help that she’s feeling more than academic about her melt-your-bones hot reaping instructor, Rath. And if her relationship drama isn’t enough to drive her over the edge, she has to deal with mother issues, nosy little sisters, suspicious friends, and an unnamed force stalking her at school. 

Then her family is attacked, and her bio-dad ends up comatose in the hospital. Now, Molly has to uncover who’s trying to hurt her loved ones—and all without the help of Anubis.

This is the second book in the Reaper Diaries but Michele did a great job recapping the first book in the first few pages and then dropped some reminders throughout the novel. Since the book is told with some parts being journal entries, it's easy to figure out what happened in the first of the series. We kind of jump right in from where the first one left off and things start going wrong for Molly right away.

The characters didn't really develop much from the first novel. My favorite character continued to be Henry, Molly's ghoul. He was always there for her, zero questions. Yes, technically that's his job but I have a feeling he'd be there for her even if it wasn't. He's not supposed to show emotions but sometimes you can see a little spark in him. Rath, the love interest, is still as adorable as always. He's less frustrating in this book compared to his character in the first one but he still keeps his bad boy charm and I'm happy Michele kept that in. Plus, every time Rath called Molly, "brown eyes", I melted a little (or A LOT).

I really love the format in which this series takes form. In between each chapter Michele allows for quotes from some of the history books written in this Reaper world and they kept me interested. It was entertaining to learn more about Molly's Reaper history.

The one true problem I had with this book was that the plot seemed to be lacking something. Molly gets into trouble from page one and things quickly happen from there but it seemed like nothing was developing, even though a lot of things were happening. I don't know if this makes sense but I'm not how else to explain it. That said, this book was the type of entertaining, fast book everyone needs once in a while. The last five pages had me glued to the book and the ending makes me think the third book in this series is going to be action packed and amazing.

Also, I'm glad we got to see more of Molly's sister, Ally. Hopefully she makes more of an appearance in the third book because I loved reading about her character and seeing it develop. I'm looking forward to the conclusion.

Rating:

★ ★ ★☆☆

I also picked some songs that I think go well with the book and I love each and every one of them.

Playlist:

Glory and Gore by Lorde

Something to Believe In by Parachute

This Moment by Katy Perry

If I Lose Myself by OneRepublic

Something I Need by OneRepublic

I Lived by OneRepublic

Let me know what you think of the playlist. These songs all have a certain vibe to them that reminded me of the book.