Teardrop, by Lauren Kate

In the author's note following her novel Teardrop, Lauren Kate shares the following story: once, when she was crying, her husband reached out and swiped a tear from her cheek, blinking it into his own eye. If that's the kind of thing that strikes you as indescribably romantic, Teardrop is the book for you. If (like me) your reaction hovers somewhere between “Ew” and “...why?”, move right along.

When seventeen-year-old Eureka Boudreaux survives the freak accident that killed her mother, it leads to months of grief and a botched suicide attempt. Eureka is still a long way from accepting her new reality, but it seems the world is done waiting for her to adjust—her lifelong best friend Brooks is suddenly doing his level best to freak her out, there's a strange boy named Ander lurking around, and even her dead mother is causing problems, bequeathing Eureka a mysterious assortment of objects in her will, including a diary containing a story about a brokenhearted girl who cried an entire continent under the sea. The tale is oddly familiar—and clearly linked to her free-spirited mother's one hard-and-fast rule: Eureka must never, ever cry.

I was torn between admiration for Ms. Kate's sheer ambition (she claims to have been inspired by Noah's Ark, Plato's Atlantis, and the Epic of Gilgamesh, in addition to her husband's creepy tear thing), and wincing over the incoherence of her storytelling. Eureka constantly behaves in ways that serve the plot but otherwise make no sense. She is devoted to her mother, but doesn't get noticeably upset when she discovers that her would-be boyfriend may have played a role in her death. She has palpable chemistry with both Brooks and Ander, but simply flings herself from boy to boy, depending on which one of them is behaving worse at the moment. And don't even get me started on her “gift”—I cannot imagine a more pathetic superpower than the ability to cry really, really hard.

However, I had similar problems with nearly every installment of Kate's Fallen series, and that didn't stop it from selling a zillion copies. I imagine fans of those books are likely to find this trilogy equally (inexplicably) thrilling—creepy love triangle, hapless heroine, drippy superpower, and all.

Review based on publisher-provided copy.