Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Everneath
(Everneath, #1)
by Brodi Ashton
Released |January 24th 2012 by HarperCollins / Balzer + Bray|
Edition |Paperback|
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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.

I must say that this book really REALLY surprised me! I did not think I would like this book as much as I did. I've been putting off reading Everneath for so long. Its just been sitting on my shelf, but something made me FINALLY decide to pick it up :) And I'm glad I did! And let me just say that I did NOT know this was some sort of a retelling-ish kind of story of Hades and Persephone UNTIL I was more that halfway through the book and noticed the blurb by Ally Condie on the front of the paperback...LOL!


At first I was a little put off by the story in the beginning because I wasn't really flowing with the writing style of the author. But once I caught on to the writing style (the switching between the past and present and its significance), things were smooth sailing. But that wasn't just it, I had to warm up to Nikki and Jack. I wasn't feeling the connection between the two characters, but as the story progressed, I understood their feelings for each other.

I did like both Jack and Nikki. Nikki was an interesting character and I really wanted to know why she always felt so down and defeated. She had a defeated attitude so much throughout the book, it started to irk me. I didn't understand why she let the things get to her so deeply, but I soon realized that it was just the multiple things she had piling up on top of her one at time, back to back and I really started to feel sorry for her in a way. Jack, I was a bit iffy about in the beginning. The two kept their distance from each other like one of them had something contagious. In the end I really liked him and was like WTF why? AND THEN there was Cole. I really don't know how I feel about him. One minute I started to think he was decent, but then the next he'd do or say something stupid to make me not like him again.

But overall, I thought the story was a really interesting twist on Hades and Persephone. It was fast paced, and had a good amount of action in it that kept me going. There was also some amazing suspense and the romance wasn't too bad either :) I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel to continue the story to find out what happens next!