Five Stars
Goodreads Summary:
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.
Yay! It's a pretty cover without terrible things inside!
I liked how it was like two Greek mythology retelling rolled up into one: Persephone&Hades and Orpheus.
You know how in Evermore, Ever complains over nothing? Here, Nikki has a very good reason to complain, but she doesn't. Yep. You heard that right: the usual complaining found in YA stories was not in here!
Every character in this book seemed to have real issues. They were also well developed, unlike in so many other stories.
Nikki came back damaged, but slowly regained her emotions again. I really liked how Nikki wasn't blaming anyone for her troubles. She could have just blamed Jack for everything and let herself wallow in self pity, but she didn't. Neither was she sitting around waiting for a guy to help her. She tried to deal with them.
Cole was confusing. I didn't know if he really liked Nikki, or he was just trying to rule the Everneath. He's one of those bad boy heroes, but Ashton makes us sympathetic to him. He sort of evil. Sometimes, though, we see a glimpse of another side of him.
Jack is a really sweet person. He's perfect for Nikki. He didn't give up on Nikki at all, which was great.
The love triangle looks like I'm going to like it. I usually hate them, apart from Jennifer Armentrout's, but this one looks awesome.
Nikki tries to get redemption. That's the plot. It sounds really simple, but Ashton makes it awesome. One of my favorite things in this plot is that it comes first, not the romance. There were also a lot of surprises that I felt like I should have guessed.
The pacing is really smooth. Everything falls into place. The switching from the past to the present should have confused me, but I really like it.
The ending is great in the sense that everything is tied up with just enough to make a next book. However, its a sad ending.
