Good Morning!
I hope everyone had a delightful and haunted Halloween!
Today I am happy to participate in the Reaping Me Softly by Kate Evangelista blog tour! This tour is hosted by AToMR Tours. You can visit the entire schedule of this fantastic tour here.
"To live is to choose.
But to choose well,
you must know who you are
and what you stand for,
where you want to go and
why you want to get there."
- Kofi Annan
Prepare to become lost in a sweet story of love, death, sacrifice and most of all - living for a reason!
Love!
Reaping Me Softly is a sweet, gentle love story between two likable characters. Arianne and Niko are inherently caring characters that provoked my instant appreciation. While their love connection was a bit too instant for my taste, I adored the overarching chemistry between the two.
Darla was a character that at first seems a stereotypical hateful girl. As the story progresses, Darla progresses. I find her nasty attitude reason - unrequited love - helped give her depth. She was not a good person and her bulling to Arianne and other characters are unredeemable but I do understand the predicament that lead to her cruelty.
Death!
My favorite character of this book is indeed Death. I was throughly delighted how Death was not the evil and terrorizing monster I usually envision for Death. Instead Death was the merciful Death. A being of compassion, confidence and respect. A true leader. I feel sorry for Death too because, as you find out through the story, he never really lived.
As a person unused to the world of reapers, I am thankful for the splendid world-building in this story. I liked the meetings and interactions between the reapers in this story. Especially the fights between the villainous Janika and Niko and the private meeting between lead reapers Travis and Tomas, and Death. The friendship of respect between Travis, Tomas and Death was evident through their delightful banter.
Sacrifice!
Living for a reason!
A certain character in this book commits a sacrifice that was brilliantly written in this book. I re-read that scene many times and feel heartbrokenness each time. It is a sacrifice to be remembered.
Most of all, this book is about the motif of the above Kofi Annan quote that Arianne says to Niko in the book. Its a book about living for a reason and struggling to find a place in the world. The book's message in my mind is 'Do not live with hatred and loneliness, live with love.'
Thanks for reading!
