Enlightened

These are the first two books in the Enlightened Series by Billie Kowalewski. This is a young adult fantasy series, and the story takes place in a world where the place we call Heaven, or the afterlife, is the real world, and Earth is their equivalent of school, a place they go to learn lessons about life and who they are. Each time they go down to Earth they experience a new life and none of them can remember their life in Heaven because of a barrier in place that keeps them from remembering. In the first book, we meet Harmony. She has experienced many lives on Earth, but her lives on Earth keep ending long before they are supposed to after, what was supposed to be, a fun bet with a fellow student and she needs to find out why.

These books were different from a lot of the stuff I have read before and I really liked that about it. The beginning of the first book, Enlightened, may be a little confusing at first, but your questions will be answered later in the book. The characters were really fun to read about, and the author had a pretty unique idea for her story. Also, it has a nice amount of humor to balance out some of the more serious parts of the book. So, if you're looking for something a little different to read, I recommend picking this series up.

*Minor Spoilers for Second Book

The second book, I really enjoyed reading, even more than the first book in the series. I liked that we got to explore one of Harmony’s lives on Earth in a little more detail then what we saw before, and that we get to see more of how Harmony and Kaleb’s relationship developed. I also loved the parts with Kaleb and Harmony’s guides, Luke and Jack. I really like them; they might even be some of my favorite characters in the series! Overall, while Enlightened was good, Divided was even better!