Unearthly, Prologue and Chapter One

I was hoping to do my posts in a somewhat "Alex Reads Twilight" fashion, with lots of pictures so you could see all of my margin doodles comments I've written with my wonderful and fantastic red pen (which, like rock4ever95's, is actually blue), but unfortunately my scanner decided that it doesn't exist, so we'll have to make do for now.


Most esteemed ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Unearthly, by Cynthia Hand.

Angels! Arson! Pretty dresses that I definitely want! Hot guys that I definitely want! What more could you ask for?

Acknowledgement that teenagers are, on occasion, somewhat intelligent. That's what.

But before we get into that, let's start at the beginning. With the prologue.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth there's a boy standing in the trees."

There is really nothing compelling about this, other than that it's YA so I assume he's young and attractive, and that I'm wondering why he's there. His dark hair is curling damply around his neck (HOT), and there is a strange orange light filling the eastern sky. This wouldn't be the sun, would it? Clara, our main character, smells smoke.

Cut to Chapter One.

Clara wakes up and still smells smoke, but she chalks it up to the "usual weirdness that is her life." She decides to wander through the house to make sure her home isn't burning to the ground. Hey, me too, Clara. I always go for a casual walk when I think the flaming walls might start collapsing around me at any moment.

Suddenly, she finds herself in the middle of a forest fire.

"I don't stay long, maybe all of thirty seconds, and then I'm back in the kitchen."

Is teleportation part of the usual weirdness in her life too?

She goes to tell her mother (good choice, Clara!), and it turns out that this actually is pretty normal. Clara and her mother turn out to be angels, and every angel as a "purpose." This vision is apparently part of Clara's. Her mother refuses to tell her what her purpose is (It's probably to be deliberately vague so as to create suspense and dramatic tension, but Clara's mother doesn't want her to know that her entire existence is a sham designed to entertain teenage girls.)

Her mother starts questioning her about the details of the vision, but all Clara can think about is the boy. Welcome to the party, hormones! It's always good to see you.

"I like the idea of being his rescuer."

Clara, your name is now Mario. And his is Princess Peach.

So they sit there and talk about what the dream might mean, and what her purpose might be. Clara says that she feels sad.

"Maybe the reason I'm so sad is that I'm going to die," she suggests.

No, that would be because you're an angsty teenager.

We go on to meet Clara Mario's younger brother Jeffrey, who seems normal enough. "All this angel-related information is new to him. He's still in that time when the supernatural stuff can be exciting and cool."

So why don't you show me he's excited? All he's done so far is ask what the vision means. And then there's a jump to two days later. Any chance to develop Jeffrey's character has just been skipped over, and at this point I'm more interested in him than I am in Mario. She's a pretty standard paranormal romance heroine, although I'm glad she's the supernatural one.

Mario goes to gym class, where she has the vision again and can taste the fire (I bet it tastes like pizza), and gets called "dorkina" by a cheerleader. Which the author makes sure to tell us is a "derivative of dork." Thank you for that clarification, Ms. Hand. Thank you.

She gets home and starts eating some Chubby Hubby ice cream (WHY IS THIS AN ICE CREAM FLAVOR?????????), her mom gets home, they exchange some not terribly funny banter, and then start theorizing about the vision again. Mario's mom discovers that the trees from the vision produce cones that "require extreme heat--like, say, from a forest fire-- to open and release their seeds."

Hold on to your panties, dear readers. I think we've just encountered some foreshadowing and a symbol for character growth.

"Even the tree has a kind of predestined meaning."

Jesus Christ, you don't have to shove it down my throat.

Mom says all they have to do now is figure out exactly where this tree grows, and then they'll move.

Dang, I wish my parents would move us around the country for hot guys I see in my dreams.

Mario eats some more Chubby Hubby (dear God), the author provides more unnecessary clarification of derogatory nicknames, the main character cuts herself just to see if she'll bleed (apparently this is an angel superpower?), and then we reach Page 13.

Or as I like to call it, the Lust After Dream Boy Page. The first two thirds are devoted to every detail of his appearance and the fact that Mario can't stop thinking about him, and the rest is all about how thoroughly unattractive she feels.

"I'm not bad looking, I know. All angel-bloods are a fairly attractive bunch. I have good skin and my lips are naturally rosy-- Hold on, I thought she was feeling insecure here. --I have very attractive knees, or so I'm told."

...attractive knees? Rock4ever95, you're a guy (who is generally attracted to women). WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A WOMAN'S KNEES? 

Also, apparently multiple people have gone out of their way to tell her she has nice knees? (Things I've learned from this chapter: I do not have a knee fetish.) But either way, yeah, Mario sounds absolutely hideous. She then goes on to talk about how her hair is by far her best feature, except it's actually really freaking annoying so we should pity her despite her beauty.

Mario's dad calls--apparently he moved out when she was 3. There's a fairly lengthy paragraph all about that where I grow to care about Mario a little bit more, but it's still more telling than showing.

Dad asks if she's okay.

"Why wouldn't I be okay?"

He coughs.

"I mean, it's rough being a teenager, right? High school. Boys."

LOL.

Dad asks if she'd like to spend the summer with him in New York, which sounds nice because Dad seems like a decent guy and she doesn't get to see him very often.

But Mario has more important things going on right now. "Like locating a forest fire."

Oh my god guys, I've figured out why they ask us about our interest in forest fires on the ACT: THEY WANT TO KNOW IF WE'RE ANGELS TRYING TO FULFILL OUR UNKNOWN PURPOSES.

We revisit the vision, the boy isn't there (NOOOOOOOOO!!!! COME BACK HOT BOY!!!!!), but we see a few new details such as a pickup truck with a cowboy on the license plate.

End Chapter One.