Review: Existence by Abbi Glines (Existence Trilogy #1)

Title: Existence by Abbi Glines

Published: December 12th 2011 by Wild Child Publishing

Source: Purchased for Kindle

Grade rate: B+

What happens when you're stalked by Death? You fall in love with him, of course.Pagan Moore doesn't cheat Death, but instead, falls in love with him.

Seventeen year old Pagan Moore has seen souls her entire life. Once she realized the strangers she often saw walking through walls were not visible to anyone else, she started ignoring them. If she didn't let them know she could see them, then they left her alone. Until she stepped out of her car the first day of school and saw an incredibly sexy guy lounging on a picnic table, watching her with an amused smirk on his face. Problem is, she knows he's dead.

Not only does he not go away when she ignores him, but he does something none of the others have ever done. He speaks. Pagan is fascinated by the soul. What she doesn't realize is that her appointed time to die is drawing near and the wickedly beautiful soul she is falling in love with is not a soul at all.

He is Death and he's about to break all the rules.

My Review

Not too long ago I read Breath by Ms. Blines and absolutely loved it (see my review here), therefore I quickly became a fan and purchased her latest book.  Existence is a paranormal read and it was fascinating.

I am a little ambivalent about Pagan (strange name, right?), on one hand she had to deal with seeing souls all her life and learned to cope and overcome this (I probably would be crazy in no time!).  On the other hand she is a “normal” teenager full of insecurities and in the middle of a love triangle.  The other two points of said triangle are Dank and Leif (even stranger names, right?).  Although at first Pagan thinks that Dank is a soul, he ends up being something different altogether, I really liked Dank, his self-sacrifice and protectiveness of Pagan were very touching.  Leif was too perfect for me, he is in the football team, and he’s handsome, smart, as I said, too perfect.   Pagan had a very caring, if somewhat absent, mother that took care of her.

The plot is original.  I have two observations to make about the novel: (1) It was too mysterious; by this I mean that we were left with hardly any information to go by to understand what was going on; and (2) I did not like the part where Pagan needs treatment.  I understand why it happened, but I didn’t like it much.  Also, what on earth was up with the ending!  This is a cliffhanger of the cruelest nature; the wait to know what come next is, as I said, cruel!  Predestined, the next book in the series, will be published next April.

About the cover: It is a lovely cover.  Those eyes are something else, the embrace, the “fog” at the bottom, it all works perfectly.