Review: Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Everneath by Brodi Ashton
Published: January 24th, 2012; HarperCollins
370 Pages

From 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.

My Rating:
5 stars

My Thoughts:

Let me put it frankly; This is a great book. Whether it was the awesome characters, the mythology, or the amazing plot, I had no trouble finishing Everneath.

                Nikki has made some bad choices, which have changed her life drastically. While she could have just curled into a ball and sulked for the 6 months she had left, she didn't, she got out and started mending the broken relationships she left behind. Yes, some of that mending was pretty painful to read (her interactions with Jack start off slow , and they left me wanting more every time), but you get to see Nikki's growth as she goes from an empty shell back to an actual human being. And the story didn't just center around the love triangle between Nikki, Jack, and Cole - Nikki also had to repair her relationships with her father, little brother, and her best friend, all while trying to get over the grief of her mother's death. She was a heroine with depth, so I wasn't annoyed by any of the choices she made. An amazing main character is always the first step to a great story, and was just that kind of character.

                 Jack was another great character in the story. Jack, Nikki's (sort of) ex-boyfriend who has changed since Nikki left. She thinks he hates her, but as the story progresses, you slowly learn more and more about the adorable relationship Jack and Nikki had before she left. Jack seemed like a jerk at the beginning of the story, what with him being described as a jock and a ladies' man. I didn't think my opinion of him would change so much, since he just seemed like one big cliché when he was first introduced. You eventually get to see that Jack never did anything to hurt Nikki - it was just a series of misunderstandings that led her astray. By the end of the book I loved Jack. Yes, he still was a bit of a cliché, but in a good way. He grew along with Nikki, and you could tell their relationship was built on something other than mutual lust.

                Surprisingly, I was a fan of Cole too (I usually only like one of the main male characters). Brodi Ashton did an amazing job of making Cole an antagonist while also being a sympathetic character - even though he wasn't always nice, there were still times I wished he was real so I could hug him.

                The backdrop of mythology that tied this whole story together was another reason I loved this book. I've always found the Persephone myth interesting, so I loved how it was tied into Everneath. It wasn't a verbatim reproduction of the myth - Ashton took it and made it her own.

                I won't go into detail about the end of the book, but I'll just say I cannot wait to read the next book in the series.

                Overall, Everneath was a fantastic book. Brodi Ashton created characters that were real, and a story that made sense and had actual depth. I will be reading the rest of the Everneath series as soon as I can get my hands on it (and I suggest you do too).