BOOK REVIEW | PURE by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Title: PURE (Covenant #2) 

Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout (Website | Twitter) 

Publication Date: April 3, 2012

Publisher: Spencer Hill Press

SYNOPSIS

There is need. And then there is Fate. 

Being destined to become some kind of supernatural electrical outlet isn't exactly awesome--especially when Alexandria's other half is everywhere she goes. Seth's in her training room, outside her classes, and keeps showing up in her bedroom--so not cool. Their connection does have some benefits, like staving off her nightmares of the tragic showdown with her mother, but it has no effect on what Alex feels for the forbidden, pure-blooded Aiden. Or what he will do--and sacrifice--for her. 

When daimons infiltrate the Covenants and attack students, the gods send furies--lesser gods determined to eradicate any threat to the Covenants and to the gods, and that includes the Apollyon--and Alex. And if that and hordes of aether-sucking monsters didn't blow bad enough, a mysterious threat seems willing to do anything to neutralize Seth, even if that means forcing Alex into servitude--or killing her. 

When the gods are involved, some decisions can never, ever be undone.

GOODREADS 

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It’s been a long time since I’ve picked up a book coming from the YA fantasy genre. I think, the last time I did was when I read Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo and that was like forever ages ago. Reading Pure by Jennifer Armentrout was definitely a great buddy for me in revisiting this genre. Pure reminded me how entertaining YA books can be and and how YA world building/elements can tend to be awesome that you would wish to be living in their world. No matter how tough the story and the rules in their world can get, there’ll always be fun characters that will accompany you in your journey.

How many pages does this book have? 300+ pages, right? But when you read Pure, it’ll feel like you’ve read 500+ pages. There’s just so many stuff happening and there isn’t a dull moment in this book. The pacing of the story was well built-up and truly ensures in keeping up the toes of its readers. There were certain elements and points in this book that were really predictable for me but then it’s just pure entertainment to read how my predictions were translated into the scenes that JLA wrote. JLA’s writing and description or the imagery is so vividly and beautifully written that you’ll feel like being transported into the story or in their world.

A lot of book nerds that I know of tend to shy away from this series because of the similarities of the Covenant series to Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy. Yes, even I can’t deny it that there are similarities that you can fully note in there but I tell you, please give this series a chance. You think you already know what’ll happen in this series because of their similarities, well you’re wrong. Jennifer Armentrout’s delivery for this series is 100% way different from Richelle Mead’s. Their writing styles are miles and miles apart. Plus here in Pure, you can see that the Covenant series is really breaking away from those noted similarities from the Vampire Academy series. The conflict and character complications for the entire series started to unravel here. The tension is fully building up and you can just imagine how the next books are going to progress and the gravity each book will hold in terms of how it’ll run.

Let’s talk about the main characters of this book – Alex, Aiden and Seth. When it comes to her intelligence and bad-assery, Alex definitely brings everything in. She’s witty, comes up with laugh-worthy comebacks and always has an opinion about a certain topic. Even when her opinion isn’t needed, she voices it out which just bites her back in the ass.

But when it comes to attitude wise, Whoa girl, you’re definitely a big pain in the rear. She doesn’t learn anything from her previous mistakes. That’s why it keeps on piling up and Pure resulted to be a big blob of her mistakes. Her pride and emotions always gets the best of her and cloud her decision making abilities. The only way for her to learn things and for it to really get through to her is for her to mess up big time, like involving deaths. Thank goodness for Seth’s presence who seems to be her personal leash in this book and for Aiden who constantly reminds her of the dos and don’ts (even if he knows there’s a 100% chance that Alex won’t listen to him). If not for them, I’m sure there’ll be a lot more casualties to be brought on by the Alexandria Andros tornado. Phew, my head pretty much ached just dealing with her.

But then when you think of the possible future of the series, it will surely be a delight to witness Alex’ character grow and bloom. We’re in for a treat. Despite her attitude problem, you can really feel the weight of the situation that Alex is carrying around. She’s a strong one for not easily breaking in. I think, her attitude will be a blessing in disguise for her character too. No matter how hard-headed she tends to get, we cannot remove the fact that she comes up with great ideas. Somewhat stupid, but great.

Aiden’s the complete opposite of Alexandria. She’s irresponsible, he’s responsible. She forgets, he reminds her. She gets too emotional and sentimental sometimes, he acts like nothing happened (but deep inside…). Aiden, oh boy I love you but you definitely give me a whiplash. In a snap of a finger, he just gets hot and then the next second, cold. There were times that it feels like he doesn’t care and suddenly he’ll turn into this very jealous dude. I love him getting all worked up and jealous, though. But I forgive you, Aiden. Because at the core of that whiplash-y attitude of yours, I know that you love and just don’t want for Alex to further get into trouble. All throughout the book, I’ve seen and felt that Aiden really loves and cares for Alex. It may have been a small gesture, training her, taking her to the zoo (Yes, he totally did!!!), even reprimanding her or THAT thing that he did at the end of Pure, I felt Aiden’s attraction and affection towards Alex. My goodness! That one that he decided to do at the end of Pure, oh man! I’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed that everything works perfectly because with only one slip and wrong move, it can really end them.

Seth’s a helluva fun guy. He made me giggle, laugh really hard and even rolled over in my bed several times because of whatever comes out of his smart mouth. Holy hell, his attitude just pulls me in too. Though, Seth’s quite the opposite of Aiden. He sometimes comes across as Alex’ enabler and definitely must try to hold off himself more on that department. Plus, not that he isn’t responsible and focused but Seth just tends to be super chill even if faced with a very grave situation. He throws jokes around and makes the situation a bit lighter through it. But I’m sure his character will also go through developments, now that them being an Apollyon seems to start of being quite a task already and add the whole Alex dilemma. Tough times. Oh my gods, speaking of tough times, there was a part in this book that Seth was thrown into a very tough situation (the cocktail thing) and I really can’t even! Poor cuddlebunny!

I may not have liked that Alex is bouncing from Aiden and Seth whenever one of the dudes doesn’t give her the time of the day but that act of hers may have benefited the readers in witnessing how her relationship with these two could get and also the attitude/chemistry of the two guys towards her. And what I love about this brewing love triangle is that JLA truly balanced it out. In Half-Blood, Seth got limited interaction with Alex and Aiden. It didn’t even matter that Aiden got a head start already from Seth because here in Pure JLA was able to equally highlight and showcase their good and bad qualities. They didn’t outshine each other. Then there’s Alex’ chemistry with these two. Hot damn, it was well-balanced as well. When it comes to Alex and Aiden, you’ll really feel the forbidden-ess of their situation which just adds to the flame between them and then Aiden goes around and do some sweet gestures. I’m done. Enters Seth, who brings out all the sexiness and embraces you with it. I’m so done. You’ll really feel torn between Aiden and Seth. It’s hard.

The minor characters in this book are really bringing in the confusion. Gods, The Council, Minister Telly, daimons and everything else are just as important as the main characters. Be sure to keep your eyes on them and keep tabs on the lines that they are spouting off. Bits and pieces of clues are surely surrounding some of these characters and are carefully plotted already as to the possibilities of which way the plot line for this series will veer off. I’ve got a couple of theories swirling inside my head and placed suspicions on certain characters right now. I have to read the next book to have my theories proven correctly or not. Hmmm.

THAT ENDING! Good thing, I have Deity already or else … I don’t know how to deal with that one! I was utterly shocked how the story taken its turn.  I didn’t quite expect for it to happen already here in Pure but I have it mind that it could possibly happen in the next books to somewhat prolong that specific event. JLA, that was certainly an explosive way to a book.

I may be super duper late to party with this series and its readers but hell yeah! I’m happy that I bumped it up on my TBR list. I definitely recommend this series to YA readers. It’s such a great world to live in and awesome characters to be with. JLA’s writing is phenomenal. Prepare yourself for the ending of this book! So be sure to have Deity in hand already! 

RATING