Embrace a guilty pleasure read

I think that almost everyone who has read Harry Potter or Twilight or any countless number of books in popular media has secretly wished- though they might not admit it- for their own unrealistic Young Adult Fiction plot to kick in and whisk them away into the world of fantasy. It’s understandable; I can’t imagine that someone wouldn’t want to live in a world where they’re someone special, where they can have powers or magic or simply the key to saving the world.

Of course, predictably, this is just the thing that happens to the main character of Author Jessica Shirvington’s Embrace series, Violet Eden.

On her 17th birthday, Violet is suddenly faced with a revelation and choice that will change her life and her view of the world forever. She learns that she has been made, upon her mother’s death during childbirth, into a half-angel being known as a Grigori, and that her role- if she accepts it- will be as a warrior, committed eternally as a fierce partner to her oh-so-attractive forbidden love interest Lincoln.

Violet must choose to follow this fantastical path- as a soldier born to vanquish fallen angels known as exiles- or continue her life as a normal senior in high school and remain vulnerable to these creatures and their relentless pride and desire to kill.

Cheesy? Yes, I’ll be the first to admit to that. But also a fun guilty pleasure read.

The series consists of five books in total: Embrace, Entice, Emblaze, Endless, and Empower. Each book took me around a day to read, both due to the large print used in the versions I read as well as to the fact that this was (embarrassingly) my second encounter with the Violet Eden saga; I read the books first in 7th grade and wanted to revisit them and see if they still held the same spark of entertainment for me as they had in the past.

Spoiler alert: they didn’t. Not that I didn’t enjoy making fun of the books as a well-read and cynical senior.

The criticisms are plenty: the books were very stereotypical young adult novels with a chosen one protagonist and an overdone love triangle, the writing was often somewhat repetitive and basic, and the author had a tendency to create ridiculous solutions for resolving plot points even when it would have been much more interesting to watch a situation develop fully.

That said, though, not only were all plot holes considered and resolved in satisfying (if impossible) ways, the books also had their merits in that they contained a multitude of unique and interesting characters that kept the read engaging with their never-ending banter and argumentation. Like I said, the novels are light and easy to read, certainly enjoyable despite their varied faults. All in all, I’m not sad that I spent a few days of my life reading these books. Even doing it twice. They were fun to read and very easy to sit down and relax with, a nice break for my brain where I could do something rather mindless instead of diving into something by Socrates or Shakespeare or Tennessee Williams. Overall, I would definitely recommend them to anyone looking for a new ‘guilty pleasure’ read, but not to anyone who wants to seriously obtain anything from their reading.