Afterlife by Claudia Gray

Release Day: March 8th, 2011

Publisher: Harperteen

Pages: 368pgs

The Story

Bianca and Lucas face a terrifying new reality: they have become what they most feared. Lucas is a vampire, and Bianca is a wraith. Together, they've overcome every obstacle life has thrown at them and fought pitched battles against enemies - mortal and otherwise. Now they must face their biggest challenge so far. They must discover if their love is strong enough to survive what comes after life...

Packed with romance, suspense and page-turning drama, Afterlife delivers a heart-stopping conclusion that won't disappoint the many fans who have made the Evernight series such a runaway success.

The Review

Before I go into details about the last installment of the Evernight series, Afterlife, I just wanted to say that although I like the concept of the series when I first read them and enjoyed reading Claudia Gray's writing...but to be honest, I've never really been an Evernight series fan. I don't know whether it's because I'm sort of "over" vampire novels in general or the fact that Bianca ends up becoming a wraith and Lucas ends up becoming a vampire...it just didn't seem all that great. However, in this book, I was pleasantly surprised by how this one ended.

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Afterlife has a lot more going for it than its predecessors and there are several more layers added to the storyline that twisted in ways you didn't see coming. Which was a good thing considering the other three books were quite predictable.

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In this book, I loved everything about it except for a couple of things: Bianca's character hasn't been my favourite (being honest here), but she has grown throughout the series but there were times where she acted childish, when really she should've been concerned about helping Lucas, and another thing...without spoiling this book - because I will if I write anymore to this review - I will say that I wasn't all thrilled about the ending, especially when it came to my beloved Balthazar, and other characters like Patrice and Victor...whom didn't really get an ending they deserved. Total bummer. I wanted more details about them and a little epilogue would've been nice too, but hey...what can you do? As for the main characters, Bianca and Lucas, they got an ending that readers will appreciate and it wasn't a complete 'happily ever after' type of ending either...which was good.

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Overall, this was a well-done book and Gray offers great non-stop action, a powerful fight for love, and all sorts of emotions that will hit you like whiplash. Whether you're already a fan of the Evernight series or haven't yet picked up these books, definitely get stuck into them!

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The Rating

4/5 stars