Review: Infinite Days - Rebecca Maizel

Where I got it: Arc from publisher
Rating: 4 stars 
Cover Rating: 4 stars (I don't understand why the tear is blue, but I love how shimmery the finished copy is!) 
Genre: Young Adult 
Publication Date: August 3, 2010
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Page Count: 336p.

Even though Lenah is Queen of her coven, the coven she hand-picked members for, she longed to be human once again. Thanks to Rhode, her soul mate, this has become possible. She had to hibernate for 100 years for the ritual to work and many things have changed since the early 1900's. Fitting in at her new school is only a small challenge compared to what else Lenah must face. Rhode told her coven that she would awake again on Nuit Rouge, which is only a few months away now. When her coven finds that she did not come back, since they are bonded to her they will seek her out. As a human Lenah has found a lot of things to care about besides herself. It is much easy to feel for people when you actually have emotions other than sorrow. Now that she's human though, can she protect her new friends from her old ones?

This was an interesting take on the vampire classic. A vampire turned human is a fresh direction for paranormal and was finely executed in this debut novel. At first I was hesitant to read this, because of the overload of vampire novels, but I am glad I did. Maizel took a simple teenage story about fitting in and added the despair of centuries of nothingness to it. Maizel's writing style was different than what I have read in the past, I can't say if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but it worked. I did appreciate her use of Justin Enos' full name to show how Lenah was completely infatuated with him and was a nice device. It is disappointing knowing this is going to be a series for two reasons. 1. When you know a book has a sequel you never worry about the main characters being in sticky situations, you just assume that they are going to be fine because you think they have to be. 2. That perfectly fantastic ending you just read kind of turns to crap because it's not really an ending anymore. I could have done without the popular cliché. Yes, they were popular, yes life is so hard for them and all the unpopular people hare them. Ick. They didn't act popular enough to justify actually being popular. Popular means that people like you, so if everyone hates you, you're not really popular. I did like that this book was mostly set in New England, I love reading about familiar territory in novels. If you like paranormal romance, check this one out. Infinite Days has some cool twists and a splash of history that mat just have you hooked until the (kinda) ending.

First Line:
"I release you...I release you, Lenah Beaudonte."

Favorite Line:
"All I felt were dazzling gold, diamonds of light."