Review: Exile by Rebecca Lim

Title: Exile
Author: Rebecca Lim
Genre: Paranormal YA
Release Date: May 2011

Summary:

Exile is the second book in Rebecca Lim's Mercy series and takes up shortly after the events in the conclusion of the first book.


Mercy 'wakes' inside the body and life of eighteen-year-old Lela Neill. Mercy has little recall of her past life, except her memories of Ryan which come back to her after a particularly insistent push from her immortal beloved Luc. In order to find Luc, Mercy must make contact with Ryan, whose feelings for her haven't dulled despite their untimely separation.
 

My Thoughts:

I started reading EXILE thinking that it would be written in the same formula that MERCY was. That it would be a mystery wrapped up in a bit of romance and soul searching on Mercy’s behalf. I turned out to be both right and wrong.

EXILE is a lot more laid back than MERCY was and the plot is much less pace driven. It is a very introspective book and Mercy spends a great deal of her time travelling the celestial universe in search of answers to who she really is.  Once again the author’s prose is infallible and  I think the way the author writes saves EXILE from being a little on the slow side.  

Mercy’s new body host is Lela Neill, a young lady struggling to hold on to the shreds of her life while her mother is fighting a losing battle with cancer. Lela works at the awesomely named Green Lantern café where most of the novel is centred. I won’t put in any spoilers but it’s fair to say that from the get go, Lela seems to be a genuinely nice person and I was saddened by the ending. The supporting characters are a mixed bunch of equally lost souls, who I came to really care about by the end of the book. Luc’s presence is less dominant in this book and I was glad for that because I have started to really dislike him, if not for his pushiness, than because of what Mercy’s brothers have been trying to tell her about him. Ryan continues to be a source of much swooning for me, but I will admit that even my very accepting YA mind finds it difficult to grasp that he and Mercy could be so much in love after less than two weeks of knowing each other. Maybe I’ll just focus on how gorgeous he is.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed EXILE and would definitely recommend it.  Am very much looking forward to the next book in the series.