Arrowheart by Rebecca Sky | Spoiler-Free Review

Title: Arrowheart
Author: Rebecca Sky
Publication Date: June 14, 2018
Genre(s): YA, Urban Fantasy, Romance, Mythology
Source: Rock Star Book Tours (Check out my tour post!)
Pages: 384
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Synopsis

Kiss the boys and make them cry…

The gods are gone. 
The people have forgotten them. 
But sixteen-year-old Rachel Patel can’t forget – the gods control her life, or more specifically, her love life.

Being a Hedoness, one of a strong group of women descended from Greek God Eros, makes true love impossible for Rachel. She wields the power of that magical golden arrow, and with it, the promise to take the will of any boy she kisses. But the last thing Rachel wants is to force someone to love her . . .

When seventeen-year-old Benjamin Blake’s disappearance links back to the Hedonesses, Rachel’s world collides with his, and her biggest fear becomes a terrifying reality. She’s falling for him – a messy, magnetic, arrow-over-feet type of fall.

Rachel distances herself, struggling to resist the growing attraction, but when he gives up his dream to help her evade arrest, distance becomes an insurmountable task. With the police hot on their trail, Rachel soon realizes there are darker forces hunting them – a group of mortals recruited by the gods who will stop at nothing to preserve the power of the Hedonesses – not to mention Eros himself, who is desperate to reverse the curse . . .

Rachel must learn to do what no Hedoness has done before – to resist her gift – or she’ll turn the person she’s grown to love into a shadow of himself … for ever.

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Review

First, a HUGE thank you to Rockstar Book Tours and Rebecca Sky for providing me with a copy of this book as a part of your blog tour and in exchange for an honest review!

So, I have some seriously conflicting thoughts about this book. I really wanted to love it, but it was just missing that something special for me.

I really enjoyed the premise of this book.

I LOVE mythology and I loved the idea of following the decedents of Eros. I honestly felt like this book was a mix of Xanadu and Rick Riordan…and I’m still not sure how I feel about that.

I’m not sure if it was me going in with too high of expectations, reading too much Rick Riordan, or poor execution, but I feel like this book had a lot of untapped potentials.

This is a story centered around Greek mythology, but we didn’t meet many characters from mythology, which kind of disappointed me.

I also didn’t like how cookie cutter some parts of the plot were. There are several books targeted to this demographic that center around people trying to avoid a certain situation or life they were born into, losing a family member in the process, and meeting a love interest that’s willing to help until they learn the TRUTH. Sadly, this is a large part of the plot and I just felt like we could have done a bit more with this one.

Also, there was this running bit about alien vampires…yeah that did nothing for me. It made me raise my eyebrows at first, but by the third mention, it got a bit old.

All of that being said, it wasn’t the worst thing I ever read. The cookie-cutter plot was predictable but the part about being able to control people added an interesting layer.

Final Thoughts

Overall, this was a unique take on a YA mythology story, but not a super original YA story.  There is definitely an audience for this book (especially those who like romance and are not overly familiar with Greek mythology). I don’t think I’ll continue with this series, but I don’t feel like I wasted my time reading it.

Rating

⭐️⭐️⭐️ – 3/5 Stars

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**HUGE thank you to Rockstar Book Tours for including me on the Arrowheart tour last month and to Rebecca Sky for providing me with an ARC of this one to review! All opinions are my own.**