Everneath (Everneath #1) by Brodi Ashton 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.
Source: I purchased a Kindle copy.
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Review:
When I first began Everneath, I was confused and disappointed. I knew this was a retelling of Hades and Persephone myth, but I was so lost. I felt like I was thrown into the middle of someone’s story. I even looked up whether it was the first book or not. Fortunately, he feeling went away as I kept reading, determined to remain optimistic and open minded about where the book would lead me. After finishing, I realize just how much I enjoyed the book and how the style of the storytelling captivated me and kept me interested.
What happened to Nikki Beckett? All I knew was that she disappeared. She was gone for awhile. She was being fed off of in the Everneath for a hundred years. And now she Returned the the Surface. She had six months before the Tunnels claimed her. She wanted to say goodbye in the right ways. She never forgot Jack. And Cole, the Everliving who Fed off her for those hundred years was captivated by her, shocked by her ability to remember the Surface, and offered her the chance to come with him, avoid the Tunnels, and be an Everliving.
I think the most interested part, after I got over the initial frustration, was not knowing what was happening. I was thrust into a story where Nikki returned, but where did she go? What happened? The chapters went back to her time before leaving for the Feed and then continued on during her 6 months left on the surface. I liked the flashbacks because it gave me details about her and her story. Everneath avoided some traditional YA tropes by being told in such a unique way. If I had her “before” story first, I may have thought there was a love triangle, but I knew it was not really like that. Nikki wasn’t the special character who suddenly realized she was the key to everything and had the big reveal about the mythological setting. Instead, her knowledge and understanding of the Everneath was fairly limited. While she experienced an event in the Everneath and survived, that was really all she knew about. Her circumstance was unique and she was somewhat special, but in different ways than what I typically get from novels in this genre.
Nikki was kind of… sad. But for some reason, it didn’t bother me. I think the layout of the novel worked well for me because I would have felt less sympathy for Nikki had I gotten her story chronologically. She was devoid of emotion in the present because she had little capacity to feel. And the Tunnels and her fate was sort of hanging over her, which is bound to ruin anyone’s day. And before, she was dealing with her mom’s death. I may not really understand why she ever went to the Feed in the first place, but I can understand that everyone has their vulnerable moments. And Cole was pretty good at being persuasive.
Everneath was weird. The plot was unique, strange, and captivated. The layout of the story was different, but it kept my interest. I don’t know that it competes with other Greek mythology retellings in my opinion, but there is something about the story that I find compelling. I’ve bought the sequel, so I’m definitely going to continue the series. I’m curious to see where it goes.
