Rachel Rambles About Arise

Arise by Tara Hudson
From Goodreads:
Amelia—still caught between life and death—must fight for every moment of her relationship with the human boy Joshua. They can hardly even kiss without Amelia accidentally dematerializing. Looking for answers, they go to visit some of Joshua’s Seer relatives in New Orleans. But even in a city so famously steeped in the supernatural, Amelia ends up with more questions than answers…and becomes increasingly convinced that she and Joshua can never have a future together.Wandering through the French Quarter, Amelia meets other in-between ghosts, and begins to seriously consider joining them. And then she meets Gabrielle. Somehow, against impossible odds, Gaby has found a way to live a sort of half-life...a half-life for which Amelia would pay any price. Torn between two worlds, Amelia must choose carefully, before the evil spirits of the netherworld choose for her.


I really liked the first book in this series, Hereafter, for a number of reasons. (Reason number one: CUTE GUY WHO READS BOOKS AND IS CUTE.) So I've been anticipating Arise for quite awhile now. And I was not disappointed!

Arise still has the wonderful romance between Joshua and Amelia, but it also has many things that Hereafter did not have. For example, a whole bunch of new characters are introduced. Some of them are sweet and funny, some of them are creepy and evil. They all bring a lot of things to the story, and I'm really glad that the book has a whole cast of people who are important as opposed to AMELIA AND JOSHUA ALL THE TIME.

This book seems to focus a lot on Amelia. Amelia's struggles with being a ghost and her indecision about being in love with Joshua and the whole EVIL PEOPLE WANT TO KILL HER thing. I really liked watching Amelia grow and change throughout the novel. As the book went on, I started loving Amelia more and more. She's really strong and smart and I completely adore her as a main character.

There is so much EPICNESS in this book. Between Amelia's weird dreams and materializations and the creepy demon things who wanted to kill her, everything is just so intense. Arise doesn't really focus on Joshua and Amelia and their undying love for each other because love can conquer all blah blah blah. The book is more suspenseful and mysterious and adventurous, which I loveeee.

Also, the setting is New Orleans, a place I have never been to but now I really want to visit because of this book. It just seems like a really cool place to go to, and somehow it's the perfect setting for a ghost story.

And okay, let's just talk about Joshua for a minute. I LOVE HIM. He's smart and romantic and sweet and hot and an amazing boyfriend and also HE READS BOOKS. So yes. I would really like a Joshua, please. Thanks.

Anyway, my point is that I think Arise is about a hundred times better than Hereafter. It exceeded all my expectations, and I cannot wait to read book three!

-Rachel