Sublime by Christina Lauren

Sublime by Christina Lauren

Release Date - October 14, 2014

Publisher Website - Simon and Schuster
Publisher Social Media - Twitter
Pages - 336 pages
My Rating - 2/5
**received in exchange for an honest review**

Here is the Goodreads synopsis

True love may mean certain death in a ghostly affair of risk and passion from New York Times bestselling duo Christina Lauren, authors of Beautiful Bastard. Tahereh Mafi, New York Times bestselling author of Shatter Me calls Sublime “a beautiful, haunting read".

When Lucy walks out of a frozen forest, wearing only a silk dress and sandals, she isn’t sure how she got there. But when she sees Colin, she knows for sure that she’s here for him.

Colin has never been captivated by a girl the way he is by Lucy. With each passing day their lives intertwine, and even as Lucy begins to remember more of her life—and her death—neither of them is willing to give up what they have, no matter how impossible it is. And when Colin finds a way to physically be with Lucy, taking himself to the brink of death where his reality and Lucy’s overlap, the joy of being together for those brief stolen moments drowns out everything in the outside world. But some lines weren’t meant to be crossed…

Take a ghost, add  increasing stakes, and more than a dash of romance and you'd have Sublime. A novel that seemed to have a lot of promising elements. Sadly, this ended up not quite being the book for me.

The novel's writing was suitable for this genre. I believe that these two authors have written romance novels before, and it shows. If you are a fan of romance novels in general, you'll certainly find plenty of it within these pages. The paranormal element does, somewhat, suffer as a result however. There is less time spent on building this element and more focus on the romance. Sadly, I wanted more of one and less of the other.

The romance is meant to be transcendent. From the moment Lucy declares to Colin that she's there 'for him' the reader is supposed to want them to work. However, I never understood the why. I didn't understand why Colin would become as desperate as he does. Why Lucy would be as determined as she is. What is pulling them together? The novel has hints that it is something bigger at work than Lucy and Colin themselves, and that it might not just be their feelings urging them on. These hints however are, at least to me, never fully explained and expanded upon.

Much is made during the novel of whether Lucy is there for Colin's safety or if she'll be his destruction. The ending answers this question, but a little unsatisfactorily.  Without giving spoilers, the ending is pretty clear on what the outcome is, but again is lacking the why. We still don't know the why behind any of what happened. I can take a few guesses, and while I don't mind having to fill in things as a reader, it felt like an important part of the mythology was missing. In paranormal novels that can be a huge part of the story, particularly in this one. So much time is spent theorizing on the why of Lucy; why is she back, what is her purpose. Frustratingly we do not get answers.

A story that, unfortunately, despite some intriguing parts fell felt for me. I wanted to be swept away into this impossible, forbidden romance, and instead I was left with more questions than answers. I do urge you to check out some more positive reviews before deciding if this is a book you would enjoy. Sadly, it wasn't a book for me.