Book Review: Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Release Date: January 24, 2012
Author: Brodi Ashton
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Length: 370 pages

"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."

Review:

Characters: Nikki starts out shy and timid, since she has just returned from 100 years on the Everneath where her soul was fed off of. In an attempt to just coast through her time back on earth for the next six months, and maybe say a final good-bye to her family. However, when her old friends won't let her get away with ignoring them, she grows stronger and starts to let her best friend and ex-boyfriend Jack in on what she went through. Now she'll do whatever she can to stay on the Surface with the people she loves. I loved how Nikki grows in this novel and that we, as readers, can see her change every step of the way. 

Romance: From the beginning I thought I would be on the side of Cole, the Hades of this story, mainly because I love the romantic interpretation of the Hades and Persephone myth. Though, not too long after I started reading Cole did and said some off-putting things that made me retract my initial hopes. The love triangle is pretty straight forward and Cole and Nikki's relationship is practically one sided, that being said I do hope that there is more development on their relationship in future books, because even if they don't end up together I want him to be a better non-person.

Mythology: Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a huge sucker for anything mythological, especially Greek and Egyptian, both of which get shout outs in this book. What I'm beginning to love about this series is that I've realized even though Everneath has ties to the Persephone myth, the next book Everbound seems to have ties to another myth involving the Greek Underworld. I'm super excited to read Everbound either when it's released or if I'm super lucky, before it's released. Either way I will be doing a review for it so be sure to stay tuned for that.

Flashbacks: If you remember I used this category in my review of Mothership, unlike in that book though, these flashbacks are told perfectly. I love that we start from the middle and we get to see glimpses of the events that led up to Nikki's journey to the Everneath while moving forward with her current conundrum. The flashbacks were easily labeled and told from past tense making the information easier to take in. Another great aspect was that the transitions into the flashbacks were practically seamless.

Predictability: This book has a very average predictability rating, it's easy to see some of the mediocre plot points ahead of time while the larger bomb shells are almost invisible, with only a few elements of foreshadowing. The times when I was most shocked at a lesser surprise was when Nikki's dad says something that I really wanted to punch him for. I was taken aback by a lot of the rule of the Everneath, mainly because according to the book, mythology got it all wrong.

Ending: One of the many reasons I cannot wait to get my hands on a copy of Everbound is this ending. It was absolutely heartbreaking. Even though there is a faint glimmer of hope at the end I couldn't believe the dramatic conclusion that was given to these characters, it's definitely on par with the horrifically depressing ending that Ms. Colleen Houck writes for her Tiger's Saga books.

Overall, I would like to give this 5 out of 5 stars just for the mythology of it all, but the rest of the story goes so above and beyond that if I could this would have 7 or 8 out of 5 stars. As a little treat for the first time I'm incorporating the book trailer so please enjoy!

P.S. Have you seen my new layout, of course this is only temporary until I finish all my layout designs with my friend Brittney after Fall term ends. Be sure to follow me on Twitter @FlyeZachary93 and in the Google box in the sidebar. Doing those two things will come in handy when I do a giveaway for Through The Ever Night by Veronica Rossi one week from today.