REVIEW #1 - Everneath by Brodi Ashton

TITLE: Everneath
AUTHOR: Brodi Ashton
PUBLICATION DATE:  Jan 24th 2012



COVER: 

Just look at this beautiful cover! I absolutely love it. Besides good reviews, the cover totally made me pick up this book. it's stunning, the title fits perfectly, and the graphic, whoa!

SYNOPSIS:


Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans. Now she's returned- to her old life, her family, her friends- before being banished back to the underworld... this time forever.
She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can't find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.
Nikki longs to spend these months reconnecting with her boyfriend, Jack, the one person she loves more than anything. But there's a problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who first enticed her to the Everneath, has followed Nikki to the mortal world. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back- this time as his queen.
As Nikki's time grows short and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she's forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole's...

REVIEW:
Plot
I seem to be one of the few people who didn't like the book. It's said to be a retelling of a Hades and Persephone myth, but...
The idea seemed cool at first. The execution of it, not so much. It's nothing like the description.
The explanation of the supernatural stuff is sloppy. The myth analogy seems forced down our throats, with Nikki conveniently having to write a paper on it.
The reasoning behind Nikki's agreement to go to Everneath was... well, I have no other word for it other than stupid.

Characters

Our main character. Nikki, Nikki, Nikki. Where to start?
She's a brooding machine. As much as I don't really want to sound harsh, it's the truth. She is. On top of that, she makes decisions that make me cringe every few pages. I thought people already have a brain at her age, but I guess I was wrong. There's no character development whatsoever. For example?
We randomly discover that she's a klutz:
“Whoops.” I unhooked the snag and
pulled my shirt back into place. “Once a klutz . . .”
Whereas for the past 250 pages it hasn't been mentioned (or rather, showed) that she's one. And I don't mean that she should trip on air every time she walks, but showing us just a bit of it?
Her unreasonable behavior when she tries not to act suspiciously... I won't even start.
Oh, and her being rather oblivious about various clues left here and there, what, with Cole being so obvious and Mary's random comments...? I seriously rolled my eyes.



It's hard to really evaluate other characters, since every single character has the same voice, speaks in the same manner and makes the same stupid decisions.
Oh, I'm sorry. The adults have this moralistic aura about them, spewing ~words of wisdom~ every now and then and trying to sound really wise about it, but it comes out like a middle school student writing a paper for his social studies class.

Writing
I am not a fan of first person POV but I tolerate it, mostly because it's widely used by YA authors. But first person POV doesn't mean you can treat a book you're writing like your own diary!
And that's what happens in this book. The wordy descriptions of the main character's feelings, often repetitive, are infuriating. Nikki seems to think it's important to inform us about every~~pain of the Surface~~ she feels or about every redundant action she takes (like, in the middle of thinking about Everneath - "I raised my head" - and then she continues thinking about it some more, the raising of her head having nothing to do with anything).
The suffering that she's so desperate to get rid of - she only *talks* about it, we never really see it. I couldn't really "get into" the mood, because I don't like when things are told rather than shown. Like - "Suddenly, I felt pain/My whole body hurt" yadda yadda yadda. I swear there was one page written like that somewhere in the book!
It needs editing. Lots of it. Some scenes were totally pointless, some phrases overused, dialogues that made me want to plant my face straight into my desk.
Oh, dialogues. Right. In addition to the characters not having their own voices, the dialogues were devoid of any wit, which made me a bit sad - I love when dialogues are just a tiny bit sassy.

Overall
This book is all talk, no essence. Yes, the characters do talk. But they don't do anything beside that. There's no action whatsoever, the romance is rather sloppily executed, the characters are flat, and the lead heroine is just plain annoying.
I was hoping for at least decent paranormal romance, and what I got was huge disappointment.

Rating