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Sunday, January 13, 2013

Everneath review

Everneath
by Brodi Ashton
Balzer + Bray
January 2012

First line: "I was picturing his face - a boy with floppy brown hair and brown eyes - when the Feed ended."

High school junior Nikki Beckett has been missing from her friends and family for the past six months and returns to them shaky and fragile. While her classmates assume that she's been strung out on drugs, and maybe returned from rehab, in fact, she's been taken underground into the Everneath for what felt like a hundred years.

Now she is torn between her old human boyfriend Jack - who has been nothing but loving and supportive while she has been coping with the death of her mother, and sexy dangerous Cole, the Eternal who initially tricked her into going underground - thinking that she wouldn't survive him feeding vampire-like off her energy for a century.

This story was loosely - very, very loosely based on the Hades and Persephone myth. There is quite a bit of a drug metaphor there too - Nikki is literally addicted to Cole and it is a struggle for her to give him up, even though he's ruining her life by leaving her with little to no energy as well as overly sensitive to sights, sounds and smells. This is a hardcore and unpleasant addiction - like heroine or meth, in the way that it takes over her life, leaving her feeling emotionless and flat.

The timeline is a bit disjointed. We swerve back and forth from present day to six months ago, with flashbacks and flashforwards. There's a countdown at the top of each chapter which rachets up the tension slightly - Nikki's been told that she has six months to spend saying goodbye to her family and her old life before she has to return to the Everneath for good, either to rule as their Queen, or to be punished in The Tunnels. The story ends on a bit of a cliffhanger... so you'll want to check out the next book in the series if you want to find out what happens.

Compare to:
A Long, Long Sleep - Anna Sheehan
Crave - Melissa Darnell
The Goddess Test - Amy Carter

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

8 comments:

  1. I just got this from the bookstore yesterday and got started this morning. I was wondering about the timeline, the back and forth is already starting to be a bit confusing. I need to remember to pay attention to the countdown so I know "when" I am....

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  2. Yeah, I was checking that countdown, religiously. I'd've been lost without it!

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  3. There is a need to compile lists of books featuring characters "addicted to love" and this is a great one to add. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Come to think of it, this might be a good one to display during Valentine's. In a, "I hate Valentine's" kind of way.

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  4. I tried this one....I really did....but quit halfway through when I realized I really didn't give a darn. Sigh!

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    1. I can see why - the main character, Nikki, gets a little trying at times. I just wanted to shake her sometimes. "Pull it together, girl!" I want to say.

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  5. I loved this book so much, but it's definitely not a book for everyone. The timeline you mentioned won't work for a lot of people I don't think - but I kind of liked the flashbacks and the choppiness of it, Nikki's kind of shattered when we meet her, so the fact that the story is pieced together I thought of paralleled Nikki herself getting pieced back together. And now I'm rambling. So sorry. I think Everbound is even better than this one, so I'm curious to see what you'll think of it!

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  6. thanks for the review-- this isn't one I wanted to read, but now I'll be able to explain to patrons what it is about.

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