Everneath (Everneath #1)

Nikki Beckett vanished from the face of the Earth six months ago, and now she's back. Nikki has been in an underworld known as the Everneath and she has Returned to the Surface to her old life for six more months to try and reconnect with people she left behind - her dad, friends and most importantly Jack.. her boyfriend the boy she loves more than anything.......

However the immortal who seduced her and took her to the Everneath, Cole, has followed her back to the Surface and intent on taking Nikki back to the Everneath for ever this time.

The book follows Nikki's journey back into her old life, her struggle to say goodbye to her family, to reconnect with her friends and most importantly work things out with Jack.

With her deadline growing ever closer Everneath beckons and Nikki is faced with the hardest decision of her life. Ashton has created a intricate world based on Greek myths and Nikki is a brilliant heroine which the reader follows with enthusiasm. The book is cleverly written and the reader is stuck from the first page, it is an easy read but when you look back on the characters they are surprisingly complex.

Nikki
Nikki, thank god, isn't the typical god awful pout in the corner that many YA female characters end up being. She has some real issues and she knows what happened in Everneath is her fault and she is searching for redemption, not for someone to blame. You want things to work out for Nikki because you can see her reasons behind her decisions and understand them but agree with her that they were wrong and be happy for her that she wants to change them.. You will definitely will her along and things to go her way!

Jack
Jack didn't give up on Nikki for the six months she was gone but now she's back he's wary, hurt and cautious. Jack is one of my favourite male characters in a long time he is extremely believable (you can see him being a real person and gawd you better hope there are Jacks out there 'cos you'll need them to battle the Coles!) He's also real sweet, understanding and funny!

Cole
Cole is the typical bad boy - he's immortal (sort of like a vampire who feeds on emotion!) and Nikki gave him the biggest feast of his life yet survived. So he's darn curious about this girl who is refusing his tempting offers and is attempting to reconnect with all her friends and family despite her impending deadline. However girls, you can't help falling a little for Cole, who, at least in the case of Nikki, does care for her and can be sweet and funny but also dark and dangerous.

Ashton creates a love triangle with Nikki, Cole and Jack but Nikki is a strong female lead character who ignores advances from Cole and is stuck on Jack. Jack and Nikki's relationship is realistic with the good times sometimes shadowed with doubt and misunderstandings.

Now I warn you it is a trilogy so if you don't want to get dragged into a series stay away because the ending will leave you desperate for the second book which is out in January 2013..

Don't know what it is but I feel like I give higher ratings to books I own in print. I'm actually positive. It must be because of that wonderful book smell and page flipping.

So. How to start this thing? You know those love triangle books have two different guys fighting over a girl? And you always pick a side. You either go for the bad boy or the boy next door. Well, this time I can't make up my mind. On one hand there's Jack. Nikki's boyfriend who's always been there for her and treater her right. Basically, he's a really nice guy. I should be on Team Jack but I'm still not sure. Then there's Cole. He's an Everliving. He's an immortal/Hades/supernatural being or whatever and he wants Nikki to stay with him forever in Everneath. He's also in a band called Dead Elvises which means he's very popular with the ladies but he only has eyes for Nikki. This should pull me in from the start but there's this thing where Cole doesn't actually feel anything. He just steals other people's emotions. He doesn't have his own so I'm not completely on board of Cole x Nikki ship. There's still time for improvement in the sequel which we'll probably see Cole's some human side. Hope I'm not wrong about this.

Huh. I do love to ramble about love triangles.

I did start reading this book last year but abandoned it after the first ten pages for some reason. I think I was tired of the hyped YA books back then. However, I did like it this time. In fact, it was unputdownable. Mum was bugging me to help her with some things and I said I have just a few pages left when there were actually 120 pages left. Now she's mad at me but I'll make it up to her somehow. I didn't mind hearing her yell. It was worth it. :) Can't wait to find out what happens next. Now I just need to order Everbound.

I loved that the premise on this book was based upon Greek mythology. I’m not as familiar with mythology as I would like to be, so I haven’t read as many stories with that focus, but I appreciated how the story was adapted based upon Nikki’s character. I’m sure if I knew my mythology even better I would be able to see more nuances and allusions, but even with my limited knowledge, I found the idea of everlivings fascinating and beyond horrifying.

Nikki is at times, quite a mess of a character, but she’s also compelling. She definitely has some self-destructive tendencies, but can also be really self-determined and convinced what she’s doing is right. I think I would have been slightly annoyed with Nikki at times except I could never stop feeling sorry for what had happened to her. The idea of someone else feeding off your energy for a century, leaving you a broken shell, is enough to make me literally cringe.

Jack and Cole are both fantastically written characters. They’re both intriguing in their own ways while being complete opposites of one another. Jack is the perfect, steady character that Nikki really needs when she returns, even if things between them are incredibly awkward at first. I like that at first we don’t know exactly what Jack’s role is, since the book is told from Nikki’s POV. I felt like I was figuring Jack out as Nikki was figuring him out for the second time.

There is just so much going on in Everneath(in a good way!). You can read it as a mythological retelling, or as a story of the foundation of love, but there’s a lot of undercurrents about the price of immortality, what constitutes a human being, and who heroes are. These aren’t all themes that might be evident on a quick read-through, but they’re definitely prominent enough that I feel they should be acknowledged. These underlying tensions are really what compels me to the series, and why I want to keep reading.

Final Impression: I wasn’t sure if I would like this book or not, but I liked the different take on mythology that I feel isn’t explored as much as some other lore. Even though Nikki had some pretty self-defeating behavior and thoughts sometimes, I never felt like I didn’t get where she was coming from. The way the characters are written and the subtle themes that run underneath this work make this a 4/5 star read for me.

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Yes. Just hell yes.
I love anything that has to do with mythology, and Orpheus and Eurydice is one of my all time favorite Greek myths. Also, Persephone is twisted into this awesome book too. So, Everneath was right up my alley.
The immortal background is nothing new, but it was done refreshingly. The story flows effortlessly and the ending was actually surprising. I was constantly guessing (and most of the time I was spot on) what would happen, and my eyes would glance to upcoming paragraphs because I just had to know what would happen!
And, is it weird that I liked Cole more than Jack?! I don't know. He just does something for me. Probably the guitar. ;)

So overall, a great book. I'm stoked for the next in the series!

A heartbreakingly beautiful tale of love, loss and immortality, Everneath is the type of book that will leave you broken and sobbing on the floor, as your heart breaks over and over for the fates bestowed upon these tragically hopeful characters.

Having spend the last century in the Everneath as a Forfeit, in the arms of Cole as he fed on her emotions in order to maintain his youth and immortality, Nikki has decided to Return to the Surface in the hopes of making amends with the people she hurt the most with her abrupt disappearance before returning to the Everneath - as either its Queen or as its prisoner - forever. Her time in the Everneath has left her a shell of the person she once was. She emanates this hollowness that pulls at all of your emotions, until you are empty like her, devoid of any kind of feeling. Her ability to laugh (or cry) has been completely shattered, as her energy for such passionate emotions has been completely depleted by Cole.

I did find it strange that no one really questioned where Nikki had disappeared to for six months, or why she had a hard time remembering different things (like where Jack worked). I also didn't completely understand Nikki's reasons for her Return. She told Cole it was to say goodbye to her friends and family properly, but then she spends the first three months of her short time on the Surface hiding in the shadows, a mere spectator of the life she once was a part of. She kept justifying her Return by saying she needed to make sure her friends and family would be ok without her, but it seemed (to me) like returning for a brief period, before leaving forever (without a proper explanation) would have been harder for her friends and family to cope with. Nikki does eventually admit her reasons were mostly selfish, saying she needed to see the face that had gotten her through a century of darkness, but I think she also needed to come to terms with how she had arrived at this fate.

"Despite all the other factors that had contributed to my fate, in the end it was my decision that destroyed my life. And all the hurt I was enduring now was my doing.

The blame rested solely with me."

Motives aside, I was completely captivated by Nikki. Her physical fragility was no match for her mental strength - she was determined to make her father understand her hurtful words were out of anger, and that she did in fact truly love him. Her hesitance with Jack was only due to her fear of hurting him further - she had Returned with every intention of watching him from afar, and would have been satisfied with knowing he was happy - even if it was without her in his life. Her overwhelming despair only solidified her resolve to make the most out of the six months she had on the Surface, which meant doing everything within her power to make her father happy (volunteering at a food bank on Saturday and submitting to random drug tests) and coming clean with Jack - even if it mean he might walk away from her. I admired her strength and her determination, and her unwillingness to take the easy, painless way out by allowing Cole to take her back to the Everneath as an Everliving.

I loved that Nikki and Jack's relationship was built on a foundation of years of friendship and that we bore witness to its development through well-placed flashbacks. Their familiarity with each other was written with ease, and their pain at seeming betrayal ran deep - I felt it as if it were my own. I actually felt slight pity for Cole, thinking that he could compete with a relationship built on that kind of trust. I still can't fully figure out Cole. There were moments where I knew he was being manipulative by either by planting seeds of doubt or feeding off Nikki's emotions to confuse her. But there were other moments where he seemed to genuinely care for her, to be falling for her, where he tried to keep her from a fate in the Everneath. I still can't decide if he cared for her for who she was, or if he cared for her because of what she could offer him - a chance at ruling the Everneath.

"Sometimes, when something hurts us, our hearts break a little - in a slightly more...literal way than for humans. Our pain sort of spills out and onto anyone around us. We call it a cracked heart."

I sat next to him and used the sleeve of my dress to wipe away some of the sweat on his forehead. He was making it hard not to pity him. "Why did it happen to you?"

He looked at me. "Because you were dancing with Jack...When it comes to you and Jack, there is no happy ending. To expect otherwise is delusional."

Is he concerned because he fears her heart will be broken if she keeps hoping for a future with Jack? Or is he just worried she might choose the Tunnels over him because of her love for Jack? Maybe it's a bit of both, but I would be interested to read something from his perspective so I could fully figure him out.

As the end drew near, and Nikki and Jack's desperation reached an all-time high, I couldn't help but wonder why they thought their plan (of destroying Cole's heart) would work to save Nikki from a life in the Everneath. Maybe they needed to believe in something, in order to keep some shred of hope alive, but I don't understand how they reached their conclusion. Though flawed, the ending was still heart-shattering. I hope I could be that brave for someone I love, but I don't know that I'm that strong.

From start to finish Everneath had me completely spellbound. I love the spin Ashton gave the classic Hades/Persephone tale - I couldn't put it down and the ache in my chest is something I assume won't be going away anytime soon.

I've been hearing buzz about Everneath for a while so when my friend offered to let me borrow her ARC I jumped at the chance. I'm not sure what I was expecting going into the book but it certainly wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

Everneath a sad, desperate story about the repercussions of a bad choice. I am not usually a fan of sad books, they usually take forever for me to read, but I couldn't put this one down. The underlying story of the possibility of redemption, love conquering all, heroes and hope kept me turning the pages until late at night.

Everneath is not one of those books that will sweep you away from the world. It's not easy to read but it is well worth the journey. The story is beautifully written. The characters are the kind that you talk about as if they are real. And the lessons learned are ones that apply to everyone.

I'm really looking forward to where this series goes.

Oh, one last thing. Those of you that know me know that I am a fan of the bad boy. They are my weakness. I was very surprised to find myself rooting for the good guy this time.