Goodreads: Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she’s returned—to her old life, her family, her boyfriend—before she’s 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 precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance—and the one person she loves more than anything. But there’s just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to the Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki home. Cole wants to take over the throne in the underworld and is convinced Nikki is the key to making it happen. And he’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.
As Nikki’s time on the Surface draws to a close and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is 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 queen.
Everneath is a captivating story of love, loss, and immortality from debut author Brodi Ashton.
Thoughts
Oh boy, here we go.
I am so tired of heroines with crazy low self esteem! I get it, I was a teenager too. There were times where I felt like the gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. But at a certain point it becomes unrealistic. And almost insulting to read.
First of Nikki and Jack are apparently childhood friends. We're not shown even a hint of this, we are simply told it. Over. And Over. And Over. And yet Nikki is constantly going on and on about how she isn't good enough for him, and how she can't BELIEVE she snagged the most popular guy in school. He's not only a footballer player, he's the quarterback (OF COURSE HE IS.)
To put this in perspective I have honestly no idea who the quarterback at my high school was. In fact I don't think I knew who it was when I was in high school
It's like Jack is two different people - sweet childhood best friend and womanizing most desired guy in school. Seriously I'm having a really hard time reconciling the two. But most importantly...not good enough?? They're childhood best friends! Why on earth would she not be good enough?!?! Correct me if I'm wrong, because after reading everyone's high school life in books I am quickly realizing that I had a different high school experience than most kids did. But was there really a swarm of girls who would try and break couples up because the girl didn't deserve the guy? Did things like that actually happen? And sure, there were definitely guys I would have been surprised if they showed interest in me, but at no point would I have decided that I wasn't good enough for a guy. If a guy showed interest in me, and I liked him back, what was to stop us from dating? Seriously correct me if I'm wrong here because I've seen situations play out like this over and over in YA books and on TV so I'm beginning to wonder if I just had a lot more self confidence and a lot more naivete than I thought in high school. Because stories like this feel like it's a caricature of high school, not what high school was really like for me.
We start the story after Jack and Nikki have already been dating for 3 months and they broke up for some reason and she got sucked into the Everneath. In the Everneath time flows differently, so she's spent 100 years intimately in this little pod with love interest #2 - Cole. It's just been the two of them, and 100 years of Cole sucking out her life force. But in a totally enjoyable way of course, because there's nothing that says euphoria like slowly dying over 100 years. At the end of this 100 years, which is where the reader enters, Nikki turns down Cole's offer of eternal life with him, instead choosing an eternity in hell. Admittedly if she chose eternal life, she too would have to do the life sucking process, but that's not the reason she turns it down. Oh no, she turns it down because she wants to see Jack one last time. *GAGS*. Keeping in mind, this is the guy she dated for 3 months, was a ball of insecurity for those 3 months, and then he proceeded to betray her, which is why she was in the Everneath. She doesn't even want to date him...she just wants to see him. One last time. Before she heads to eternal hell. Yeah.
I'm sorry, I love my boyfriend very much and I've been dating him 5 years, but I'm pretty sure I would not choose to go to hell so I could see him one last time. Just sayin.
And then there's Cole. Who of course is madly in love with Nikki because she's special. She's different. Therefore he MUST love her. And she doesn't like him because she keeps telling us he's evil, despite all evidence to the contrary (minus the life sucking, which honestly she doesn't seem too mad about). So Cole is some evil ancient being. Except he acts just like an angsty bad boy teenager. I'm sorry, but if someone has been alive for 700 years or so, that's not how he would act. Being alive that long changes you. Especially if you're killing people, sort of.
So there's your main characters. Two super hunky boys who for no apparent reason are in love with this totally normal nothing special about her girl. Of course. *Slightly spoilery next line, but not really because it's what happens throughout the whole book, but be forewarned* And of course when Nikki has the option between eternal life with the boy she spent 100 YEARS with and the boy she dated for 3 months and who she thinks *SPOILERS* cheated on her *SPOILERS*, she keeps fighting to be with the 3 months boy. Seriously?
Of course there's also the token bff who serves no purpose at all. I mean, kudos that she isn't secretly a backstabbing bitch, but since she's one of the few characters I actually liked it would have been nice for her to...you know...do something. She appears to be inserted to stir up love interest complications with Jack, except of course, she doesn't really. I will give props where deserved though, so maybe she will serve more of a purpose in the next book. I'll also say that Nikki has a family, and while things are rocky with them because up and disappeared for a few months, she at least cares about them, which was also a surprising turn of events. Family mentioned in a not awful way in a YA book, who woulda thought?
Overall:
Here's an easy way to sum up this book: Any time a character decides to do anything:
And then there's Cole. Who of course is madly in love with Nikki because she's special. She's different. Therefore he MUST love her. And she doesn't like him because she keeps telling us he's evil, despite all evidence to the contrary (minus the life sucking, which honestly she doesn't seem too mad about). So Cole is some evil ancient being. Except he acts just like an angsty bad boy teenager. I'm sorry, but if someone has been alive for 700 years or so, that's not how he would act. Being alive that long changes you. Especially if you're killing people, sort of.
So there's your main characters. Two super hunky boys who for no apparent reason are in love with this totally normal nothing special about her girl. Of course. *Slightly spoilery next line, but not really because it's what happens throughout the whole book, but be forewarned* And of course when Nikki has the option between eternal life with the boy she spent 100 YEARS with and the boy she dated for 3 months and who she thinks *SPOILERS* cheated on her *SPOILERS*, she keeps fighting to be with the 3 months boy. Seriously?
Of course there's also the token bff who serves no purpose at all. I mean, kudos that she isn't secretly a backstabbing bitch, but since she's one of the few characters I actually liked it would have been nice for her to...you know...do something. She appears to be inserted to stir up love interest complications with Jack, except of course, she doesn't really. I will give props where deserved though, so maybe she will serve more of a purpose in the next book. I'll also say that Nikki has a family, and while things are rocky with them because up and disappeared for a few months, she at least cares about them, which was also a surprising turn of events. Family mentioned in a not awful way in a YA book, who woulda thought?
Overall:
Here's an easy way to sum up this book: Any time a character decides to do anything:
AND YET. After an entire blog post's worth of spewing hatred....I am halfway through the next book, and have the one after that lined up. Yep, I said that. Because here's the thing...besides being 95% of everything I hate in a book...it's engaging writing with a great paced story. It's addicting. It may stand against all of my morals as a reader and a blogger, but it's seriously like crack. I feel like a paranormal YA crack whore now. But I'm going to keep reading it.
Haha, this kind of sums up exactly how I feel about this series. Wait until you read the next one. LOL. I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it!
ReplyDeleteOh dear. That doesn't sound very promising haha
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