Book Thoughts: Everneath

Title: Everneath
Author: Brodi Ashton
Series: Everneath #1
*Imported from tumblr*

I did not think that I was going to enjoy this one, but I could not have been more wrong.

Nikki Beckett, back on earth after a hundred years — or a few months, depending on whose perspective you’re looking at — in the Everneath, has six months to say goodbye to her family before being sucked back to the underworld forever. Whatever emotions she has left will be used to power the immortals who live in the Everneath and feed off of willing mortals. When she left, Nikki didn’t want her life anymore, but now that she’s back and has six months to say goodbye forever, she’ll do anything to stay aboveground — and to win back the love of the boy whose memory saved her in the Everneath.

I don’t feel like I’ve done the book any sort of justice with that summary. Yes, it’s got your obligatory YA-romance-love-triangle - two smokin’ hot guys fighting over the girl. But Everneath is far from the stereotype. In fact, one of my favorite things about the novel was the way Nikki’s relationships with Cole and Jack were developed. And Brodi Ashton’s twist on immortality and the underworld? LOVE. Also, I’m a total mythology geek, so the parallels to Orpheus and Eurydice and also to Hades and Persephone were super cool. My only complaint was that some of the narrative time-jumps were a little weird at first.

It’s definitely a romance novel, but there’s a lot more to it than just that, and I for one can’t wait to get my hands on the sequel.

Book Thoughts: The Replacement

Title: The Replacement
Author: Brenna Yovanoff

I would have loved to sit down and read The Replacement in one go, but unfortunately, schoolwork prevented that. It took me ages to get through this book because I had to keep hiding it from myself until schoolwork was done. But now I've finally caught up on schoolwork, so I sat down and finished it all at once. And since it comes out exactly one month from today, I figure that's just barely close enough to the release date that I can go ahead and put the review up right now.

The Replacement was awesome. I loved it.

What I didn't like was the description on the back cover. I feel like it says too much and not the right things. It  just doesn't quite fit completely with the story. But if you ignore that and just dive into the story...wow.

Mackie is not normal. He can't go to church with his family even though his father is a minister, because the ground is consecrated. He gets physically sick when he comes into contact with iron or comes too close to blood. He can't even kiss the girl he likes, because she has a metal tongue ring. He knows why he's not normal, and so does his family: he's not really their son, Emma's not his biological sister. The real Malcolm Doyle was stolen from his crib as an infant, and Mackie was left in his place. What makes Mackie different from the other Replacements is that he survived.

And now another child has disappeared: the baby sister of a girl from school, Tate. Mackie knows Tate - she's friends with two of his best friends, and he finds her intriguing. But he can't tell her that he knows what happened to Natalie. What he can do is find out what the truth is about who he is and how to save Tate's sister.

I loved Mackie as a narrator. I just connected to him -  he felt so real. His emotions, the way he struggled with his feelings for family and friends and classmates, his desire to fit in and hide his unusualness from everyone else...it was just excellent. It's very difficult to put into words the way I related to Mackie, but it was wonderful. I also really loved a lot of the side characters. Emma, Roswell, Tate, the Morrigan...and the Lady made the perfect villain. So, so awesome. I wish we got to see more of Tate and Emma.

So yes. I love the characters, I love the story (delightfully dark, creepy, beautiful and honest), and I love Brenna Yovanoff's writing style (seriously, it's awesome).