Book Review: Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Synopsis:

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.

Nikki wakes up after 100 years in the creepy and terrifying caverns of the Everneath. Cole, the mysterious immortal who brought her there, has been slowly draining her of her energy and emotions until there’s nothing left. But Nikki is able to Return to the Surface, to her home, for six months before she has to make a choice. Return to the Everneath with Cole and possibly become its Queen, or be dragged to the horrible Tunnels to be drained until she simply ceases to exist. Problem is, Nikki has something on the Surface that she wants to fight for, or rather, someone. Jack, her boyfriend from before was all that kept her going in the Everneath. He’s the reason she can Return to the Surface, and he’s going to do his level best to keep her there.

This is the love triangle to end all love triangles. Ok, maybe that’s a bit dramatic. The love triangle didn’t even really bother me as much as I was expecting it to. But that was a huge conflict in the book. There were moments where I really felt for both sides, surprisingly enough. But in the end, I am solidly Team Jack.

Well, not that Jack, but you get the picture.

For me, Everneath was pretty typical YA Paranormal Romance. The drama was high, over half of the book took place in a high school, boys mysteriously appeared in our heroine’s bedroom, and again, a love triangle was one of the major contributors to the conflict. One pretty cool thing it did have going for it was that Everneath is a re-imagining of the Persephone myth. One of the biggest reasons I want to read the sequel (aside from the cliffhanger) is that we aren’t given very much information on the actual Everneath and what goes on down there. We don’t know all the rules or what everything really looks like. We only know a little about the cult- The Daughters of Persephone- and I personally hope they play a bigger role later on.

Something about Cole made me really like him at times. He would do the puppy-dog eyes at Nikki, making the reader think he was going through some dynamic change, and then we would be reminded that he sucks people dry of their energy.

I really liked Jack. He didn’t push Nikki, and he listened when she was ready to talk. I like that he didn’t immediately believe everything she said. It took time for him to come around, and even then, he still needed proof.

Nikki. I’m not a huge fan. She was pretty irritating. I feel like half of what happened could have been avoided if she had talked to Jack sooner. And she was WAY too dramatic about some things.

I totally get that her life SUCKS. But I’ve read some pretty great heroines who had worse lives and responded in way better ways. Or at least more interesting. Nikki decided to mope and sort of live in quasi denial about everything. Not my favorite heroine by any stretch.

The plot was certainly interesting enough to keep me engaged and make me interested in the sequel. The writing was good, the pacing was good. Everything was good. I enjoyed it. Sits perfectly in the middle of the Paranormal Romance genre, so if that’s your thing, you’ll like Everneath.