Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan

This book is too short. At what I would have considered the important halfway point of the story, it ends. It's billed as a trilogy but it certainly doesn't have to be. From what I've read, there's not enough plot for it to go that long.

I read this book at my friend's suggestion. It is a young adult novel, so the pace and "trilogy" attribution might be for their benefit. And there is a distinct "woe is me, i'm so woe" in the main character's characterization, which I've come to identify as part of the teen genre.

Overall, the story's not bad. There are a lot of good ideas going, and interesting characters. But I would have to wait for the next two books to come out to see if its weird length is justified. This novel is about Nastaya, or Nasty. She is an immortal and has lived a very long and debauched life. At the beginning of the story, she witnesses her friend commit a heinous crime and she comes to her senses and tries to escape the life she's led. She runs away to a small commune in Massachusetts for "wayward immortals" and learns to live her life anew. The book ends when she discovers what she really wants... to be her original self again - the girl she was born as, instead of the different characters she's personified over the last half millennia. That is where I would have thought of as the halfway point of the story. She has made personal growth, and so the plot can begin. But no, it stops. So annoying.

In my mind, book 1 would continue with her sleeping with her viking god/arch nemesis, and as she figures out what her relationship with Reyn is, Incy will find her with the help of Nell and they will duke it out. She will win, of course, and Incy will either die or run off with his tail between his legs and plot his next move. In book 2, she and Reyn move out of the commune and live a new life together in the world but they are followed by Incy or other power mongering immortals. In book 3, the two of them will grow world weary and spend some time apart, and inevitably they come together again back at the commune, and decide to start a commune of their own in Iceland to bring proper closure to their long history together. Of course, that is just how I would write it. No idea what the author intends.