Review: Reviews from The Bawdy Book Blog
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 1, 2012
Forever Dark is forever my favorite of the Dark Angel Chronicles!It's come down to the Big Day for Elis and Raea: the wedding. They've come a long way from the high school teenagers they were when they first met a mere five months before to the brave Keepers they are today. They've suffered through heart-break and loss, kidnappings, assaults...and they've come out ahead. They've found each other and that's all that truly matters.In Forever Dark, Elis and Raea are completing the bonding process and planning to leave for college, when they mysteriously end up back on Inar `Abhen. Elis is shocked to find his one-time friend, Toril, behind their kidnapping, claiming to be a traitor to the Empire. Refusing to have a mind-scan, they don't know whether or not to believe him, though his actions seem sincere.Then Elis and Toril disappear. And it's up to Raea to find them.I can't tell you how much I enjoyed Forever Dark! It wrapped up the Dark Angel Chronicles just SO WELL. Melanie Nilles did an exquisite job capitalizing on the characters of the other novels in this series and incorporating them all into the final chapter of the story, so-to-speak. The character development from the first book through Forever Dark is so well done and believable that when I sit back and think about how far they have come, well...it just knocks my socks right off. Raea has come from a woe-is-me teenager without many cares in the world to a smart (alright, alright, she's always been smart), responsible young woman who knows her duty to the Starfire. Elis, after suffering through terrible tragedies involving his immediate family, has realized that life is what you make of it, and with Raea by his side, he can face anything.Wait, these people are teenagers? Yes, Virginia, they are. And damn, upstanding ones at that. (But, you know, interesting ones, not the boring kind your grandma probably talks about)One would suppose that since Elis and Raea get married in Forever Dark that there may be some sexual content. A lot of authors seem to be doing it these days (pun intended), but Nilles manages to gracefully talk about the subject without getting into the nitty, gritty details. And notice it's after they're married? I ain't gonna lie, I like a little "romp-me-Barrons" sex scenes, and I'm not a prude, but it's nice to have a traditional romance once in awhile. I really enjoyed this aspect of the novel, it felt sweet and real.The overall plot of the novel is quick and a page-turner. I had a hard time putting it down for things like eating...and sleeping. I absolutely had to know what happened next. It was very easy to read and keep up with, and its characters - all of them, including villains, new and old - were fun to get to know. I think readers of this series will enjoy the old characters that come back in Forever Dark, for good or bad, and the new characters that get introduced. And they will certainly delight in where the story takes them. Because I did!Fans of this series will rejoice in the ending and, while it is a science-fiction/fantasy blend, dare I say fans of other angel books, by authors like Cynthia Hand, will also like this novel. It's got a little bit of everything for the young adult reader inside you.