Monday, October 13, 2014

Unmarked ~ Kami Garcia (earc) review [@lbkids @kamigarcia]

Unmarked (The Legion #2)
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
September 30, 2014
384 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depo/or Amazon

** my review of The Legion #1 Unbreakable **

The heart-pounding sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller, Unbreakable, by New York Times bestselling Beautiful Creatures co-author Kami Garcia.

"A rare sequel that surpasses the original."--Ransom Riggs, New York Times bestselling author of Hollow City

He is here... and he could be anyone.

Kennedy Waters lives in a world where vengeance spirits kill, ghosts keep secrets, and a demon walks among us–a demon she accidentally set free.

Now Kennedy and the other Legion members–Alara, Priest, Lukas, and Jared–have to hunt him down. As they learn more about the history of the Legion and the Illuminati, Kennedy realizes that the greatest mystery of all does not belong to any secret order, but to her own family. With the clock ticking and the life of someone she loves hanging in the balance, Kennedy has to ask the question she fears most: what is it about her past that has left her Unmarked?


I am in definite agreement with Ransom Riggs about Unmarked being even better than the first Legion book, Unbreakable.

We have already met the characters - Kennedy, Lukas, Jared, Alara and Priest - and both readers and Kennedy now know about the Legion and the supernatural entities they deal with daily. After Unbreakable we also know that things in the prison did not go how any of the teens planned. A demon worse than they could have imagined has been set free . . . now they have to stop him.

Unbreakable had a great ending that left me anxious to know what happened next. Unmarked answers those questions in the best possible way. It manages to both throw readers right into things and then, once you can't wait to find out more,  backups and takes a slower pace.

It's both incredibly frustrating and incredibly thrilling to know where things are headed, just not how they are going to get there. Garcia shows us the danger that's approaching and then takes you along on the characters' journey to that point.

We learn more about their characters, what they will all do for each other and about the world of the Legion. Unmarked not only has demons and the Legion, it has the Illuminati, too. Receiving a fuller picture of The Legion's world, of both the groups' and the characters' histories (all while finding out when what was glimpsed in the beginning will take place) will keep you turning the pages until you do reach the end.

In the first book, I liked Alara and Priest more than Kennedy, Lukas and Jared. In this second book, we get to see more of Kennedy's feelings, her doubts and her faults. She feels more human in this second book and I like her much more. I like the brothers, as well, but still want just a bit more of them. (Alara may still be my favorite, though.)

The Supernatural air that the first book had is present here, too. A fully original world and characters, it isn't a 'copy' of the show, but has a bit of the same feeling. Fans of the show should definitely give this series a read.

If you enjoyed the ending of Unbreakable, know that it has nothing on the ending of Unmarked. This second book has a great expansion of the world introduced in the first book with new characters, answers to questions and more backstory given. The character interactions and relationships are again great and only improve given the new characters and developments. I am incredibly anxious and excited to read Book 3.





read for review thanks to LBYR and NetGalley


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