Until I Die by Amy Plum

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4.5/5 STARS

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy (paranormal)
Author: Amy Plum
Published: May 2012
Publisher: ATOM
Pages: 357 {paperback}

Original review on Goodreads

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Initial Thoughts

Oh my god. OH MY GOD. I NEED THE NEXT BOOK. I think I’m going to die with out it – WHY IS THERE NOT A 24/7 BOOKSTORE CLOSE BY. *heavy breathing* Pluuuuuummmmmmmm!

*collapses*

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Dying of Feels

I am absolutely loving this series. Plum has quickly become one of my all time favourite authors because her story telling is absolutely awesome. Until I Die is the second book in the Die For Me trilogy and it did not let me down, thank goodness. I was really nervous going into this as sequels so often fall short of the first book, and whilst I still have some very minor problems with this book, it was everything I’d hoped for and more. If you haven’t read the first book then leave now because, this being a sequel, I will spoil a couple of things for ya. Seriously, go make some tea and start reading this series.

I had such a magnificently fun time reading this book it was crazy. TT over @ IntroToBlurb and I basically buddy read/flailed this together and AHHHHH basically sums up how we both feel about this book. Once his review is live I will link it a-here.

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The Drama

At the end of the book one we’ve left off in a reasonably happy place – Vincent and Kate are happily dating having temporarily defeated the Numa in a very awesome fighting duo that sort of solidified and justified Kate’s place in the Revenant’s world. She knows quite a lot about them but there’s still an awful lot left to learn. This book throws a lot of challenges at Kate for her to overcome, namely an old prophecy and a fundamentally impossible relationship.

This definitely reads as a bridge between book one and three, in my opinion, as a lot of the attention is focused around developing characters more and nutting out the finer details to Kate’s life amongst the Revenants. It’s a very fun read and one of the most plot twist and surprise heavy books that I’ve read in a while. I am so excited to get on and read the next book now!

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Vincent and Kate

The story still revolves around these two and this time Kate is really worried about how they can be a couple. It puts some serious friction in their relationship as Vincent starts going to some mysterious and clearly tiresome lengths to find a solution to this problem. Of course, Kate being Kate goes off on her ow mission of discovery to try and work things out. She seems pretty determined to make Vincent human – which I thought was interesting to say the least. This means that we didn’t get quite a much Kate-Vincent time as I was hoping for – Plum is really testing us by keeping the answers at bay. That being said, we had some pretty serious developments in their relationship, *waggles eyebrows*, seeing as they’re both pretty certain that each other is “the one”. I cannot wait to find out where their relationship will go in If I Should Die – it’s going to be a doozy.

I also just had the most brilliant idea everywhere that you can all kiss me for later. Imagine, if Vince played classical music on the piano as a hobby during his spare time. Can you imagine it? CAN YOU?! Just picture Kate returning to La Maison to do her homework with him and she waltzes in to the sound of music drifting through the house, specifically, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata . . . tra la la di! da! di! da! Wouldn’t it just be magical! CAN SOMEONE PEASE MAKE THIS INTO A MOVIE AND DO THIS. Thank you. (on the topic of music, though, any and all classical piano pieces make for a great atmosphere whilst reading this book (and yes, I am reviewing this whilst listening to an album of great classical piano compilations. Mozart > Taylor Swift)).

And a shout out to one of the best sister relationships in fiction. I bloody love Kate and Georgia, they’re just so perfectly nice and horrible to each other. It’s fantastic.

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Violette and Arthur

Firstly, I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the mental struggle I went through trying to convince myself that Violette was obviously pronounced the French way (right? Just like Geneviève is – “jen-ah-vee-ev”, so “vee-oh-let”). Because every time I got to her name and said “Violet” I then immediately went WAIT NO. Argh. The struggles. Ahem.

Now, these are two other characters that come into play during this book. They come to live with JB in place of Charles and Charlotte (who got exiled to Siberia, no, I’m kidding – who are taking some time away) and they’re MYSTERIOUS on every level possible. Violet comes across as a snobby girl who’s way out of her time, but actually okay once you get to know her. My favourite thing about what she brought to he story was the way she sent messages to Kate via flowers. Literally. She talks about how back in her day ladies knew what every flower meant and therefore could use them as a subtle form of communication. I shared this quote the other day:

“The tiny white flowers Geneviève is throwing – they’re arbutus.” She saw my confusion and corrected herself. “I forgot that they do not teach the language of flowers nowadays. That was a staple of a lady’s education. Every flower has its own meaning. And arbutus flowers mean ‘Thee only do I love.’ …”

Arthur, I didn’t know what to make of for quite a long time. He’s a quiet character and has some interesting ‘input’ into the story. I don’t want to say too much about him so as to avoid spoilers but bravo Plum, you adorable little genius.

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What I Wasn’t So Keen On

Despite my praising of Plum and her infallibility as a writer, I do briefly want to mention a couple of things I found . . . less amazing in the book.

Namely, the plot in general *collective gasp*. Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed this for what it was, I was a little disappointed with how much . . . doesn’t happen. We don’t achieve much in this book, it’s just a sort of slow-motion, giant step forward. If you get my drift. But it does do some very important things, such as further developing characters and the intricacies of this world which is VERY important.

The other thing was that I was acutely aware of how much time is spent reminds us of previous events from the first book and the lack of action. But aside from this, I was happy. I 100% understand why the book is the way it is, but I was worried for a while that there wouldn’t be any redeeming factor to the book and I would be left in a whole of lksdjljgoij because life cannot go on without good Plum stories. Stagnation aside, this is an amazing book.

And now, if you haven’t read THIS book then I advise you to leave now as I’m going to discuss some UNHIDDEN SPOILERS. So unless you like being spoiled by my theories and comments from this book then I suggest you high-tail it out of here!!

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Spoiler Time!

Let’s kick this off with some of my theories that I’m dying to get off my chest:

1) I think that Kate is The Champion. So much of this book leans towards Vincent being The Champion, but, if you ask me, that’s far too obvious. She’s able to communicate with Vincent when he’s volant, she’s able to tell who’s Numa and who’s Revenant, and she was able to withstand Vincent effectively possessing her body. I feel like I’m right about this.

2) This, of course, means that I think Kate will become a revenant in book three. I’m not sure who she will die for but it’s got to be either Papy, Georgia, or Vincent (if dying for a Revenant counts?). I hope it’s for Vincent, because I’m sure it will be something so romantic in that case that we will just DIE.

3) Papy *might* be more involved with the Revenant world than we’re led to believe. Myself and TT had a theory that he was the leader of the Numa going into this book . . . but I think that was pretty much shot down. UNLESS THERE’S A HUGE ASS PLOT TWIST COMING. *much gasping*.

4) Either Charlotte or Geneviève is evil/up to no good I’m leaning towards Charlotte at the moment, although I’m not sure why. Both her’s and Charle’s stories seem to be on a sort meaningless tangent at the moment so clearly we just can’t see where things are heading yet. There’s a storm a-brewing, me hearties.

Okay, but now onto me ranting in a spoiler-y fashion:

– Let’s start with the smaller things: Jules’ affection for Kate came out on a whole other level for this book. In the first book I found his flirtatious quips really funny and some great comedy relief. However, it’s pretty clear in this book that Jules is actually in love (yes?) with Kate – and I’m *really* intrigued to work out whether Vincent knows this or not. And how *I* feel about this. BECAUSE HMS KATE-JULES WOULD SAIL MAGNIFICENTLY. Just putting that out there.

– I am VERY angry at Ambrose: how dare he be in love with Geneviève! And not Charlotte!! My heart goes out to her.

– I was surprised at how evil Violette turned out to be. Although I started picking up on Plum’s hints much earlier than I usually do (namely through Georgia’s remarks), I hadn’t expected her to have been plotting this for quite so long.

– I’m waving my LGBTQ+ flag at the revelation that JB and Gaspard are a thing. THIS. IS. SUCH. A. CUTE. PAIRING.

– Lastly, I don’t think Vincent is gone, gone. I think, because of my theory that Kate is The Champion, she’ll be able to bring him back and either destroy the Numa or have them reconcile their differences – I like the idea that they’re a balance of powers rather than opposites.

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Summary

Firstly, congratulations on getting to the end of this very long and ranty review. This is a series not to be missed. I can’t recommend it enough and I hope you are going to continue the series! I’m in love with Plum’s writing and characters and I’m super anxious to find out how this ends. Thank goodness that Plum still has other books coming out! I think *I* would die if this were it! READ THIS BOOK. It is a whirlwind of awesome-ness that will leave you jelly-legged and flailing hopelessly through life for at least a week.

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 Have you read Until I Die?

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~~ Kirstie ~~

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