Review: Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Title: Everneath
Author: Brodi Ashton
Series: (Everneath #1)
Pages: 370
Publisher: Harper Collins
Date Published: January 24, 2012
Format: Hardcover
Genre: Paranormal/Mythology (YA)
Source: Library


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...

My Review:
I feel like I am missing something that other bloggers see in this book. For almost all of my bloggy friends, they rated Everneath at least a 4 and sometimes even a 5 and I'm like...WTF! But in my opinion, the only thing beautiful and good about this book was the cover (AMAZING dress by the way...I'd buy that...) but seriously, as for the story. Ugh...Holy Pain and Angst Batman! Reading this book was like struggling to breathe underwater, while being stabbed with needles and being forced to watch your least favorite movie over and over again. I struggled between wanting to throw the book out my window and simultaneously being so depressed about how angsty and painful the story was that I wanted to jump off a freaking bridge!

If you are a fan of irrelevant teenage angst, mixed with despair, hopelessness, and depression all mixed together in a main character that does absolutely nothing, then this is the book for you! Normally, I am a sucker for teenage angst. I love it when things are complicated and teens act like the moody little brats they are, and we all have to deal with the catastrophic fallout of their tempers...that is good angst. This angst was just sad. Nikki claims that she is in so much pain, and that the world is so painful, and she is so hurt that she can't talk to anyone she knew because of how badly it just HURTS (um..whining much?). Yet the whole time, she's doing nothing, she apparently excaped the Everneath to go back to the boy she loves and the family who cares about her, but now that she's back she just sits in class and works on papers...what the heck? She doesn't even TRY to talk about what happened to her for the first half of the book. She just mopes and cries and talks about how painful life is.

I guess I just didn't understand a lot of the paranormal aspects to the story. We've all heard the Hades and Persephone myth, and apparently Cole is Hades and Nikki is Persephone. But instead of wanting her to be his queen, Cole just picked Nikki to like...eat her soul...or whatever. (what the "everneath people" needed was never really clarified) Very romantic. "Here Honey, let me feed off you for 100 years and take your teenage angst away, but leave you a shell of a person who lives in the darkness forever!" And another thing... So these Everneath people all need to steal people's energy to survive? Ok...I can get that...but then why do they have to spend 100 years pressed up against their prey in a cocoon? I said it...a cocoon. Um...what? Why? Wouldn't that suck for the soul-sucker too? I wouldn't want to spend 100 years hugging my cheeseburgers before I can eat them... Is it energy transmission via osmosis? Do they make out in the cocoons and transfer energy that way? Nothing was EVER explained! And then later, how exactly do the humans get used as batteries by the everneath? After they get most of themselves sucked out of them in the 100-year cocoon, they just go lay down in a dark hole in the ground and....exist? It was ridiculous and I found no reasons at all that would convince a person to to that to themselves.. (humans of course come to the everneath willingly...) Right...

...I really don't know what to say other than that it left me with a cold and depressed feeling. Literally like I would never be happy again and that life isn't worth it and that I might as well give up now. Seriously harshes your vibe if you know what I mean. I thought that there was SO much potential there, especially because incorporates a bit more mythology by bringing Eurydice and Orpheus into the picture. There are multiple myths being modernized and you would think that it would be something entrancing and sweet. But the story definitely needed something more because I wasn't really buying ANYTHING that came out of the MC's mouth. Or thoughts. Or anything at all in the plot.

I give Everneath 2 Keys. The only redeeming qualities in my opinion were the cover, and the fact that Brodi Ashton actually is a pretty decent writer. I loved the flow of the writing and the descriptions were beautiful but it wasn't enough to save this novel for me. I don't even want to touch the sequel. I felt like I had to eat comfort food and only read happy books for a week after I finished this one. Which is also what I do when I get really sick...so reading this book was the equivalent of having the flu and trying to recover from it. Not exactly a glowing reccomendation I know, but like I said, a lot of other people have really enjoyed it so maybe check out these blogs to get a positive opinion.

Xpresso Reads

Parajunkee

Confessions of a Bookaholic