Review- Everneath

Title: Everneath
Author: Brodi Ashton
Series: Everneath #1
Publisher: HarperTeen
Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads
Source: Copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans. Now she's returned- to her old life, her family, her friends- before being 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 months reconnecting with her boyfriend, Jack, the one person she loves more than anything. But there's a problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who first enticed her to the Everneath, has followed Nikki to the mortal world. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back- this time as his queen.

As Nikki's time grows short and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she's 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...

My take: 

I am quite surprised that there have been so many modern re-tellings of the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone this year. So when I got this book for review, I was a little disappointed to discover that I would have to read yet another modern re-telling of Hades and Persephone. And with the way it started, I didn’t think I would be able to get through it. But then it turned out to be the most creative re-telling of Hades and Persephone that I have read this year! I definitely thought it was better than The Goddess Test and Abandoned.

The main concept behind this particular modern take on a Greek myth is these being called the Everlings. Every so often, they take unsuspecting females down into the Everneath and feed off their life source for their equivalent of 100 years (6 months normal time). They are ruled by their queen who seems to have been the only girl who has ever survived the feeding. Even though it is not really specified, I’m guessing that all the Everlings are male because if a female ever survived, she can threaten to take over the queen and her particular Everling would encourage her to do so.

So Nikki, who disappeared without a trace six months ago, has now survived the Feed and wants to go back to her family and her boyfriend but she will only have six more months before she has to leave the mortal world forever. Her soul was already claimed by the Everneath and it’s only a matter of time before they come looking for her. But she has no idea why she survived and all the other girls had not and her journey to figure it out is so good. At least the second half of the book is.

The other thing that made the book really good for me was the Daughter of Persephone. They are this cult of women who believe they are decedents of Persephone and they literally groom their daughters to be taken to the Everneath in the hopes that they will survive and overthrow the queen. I love mysterious subplots that are rooted in the past. I feel like I’ve already give away too many spoilers so I’m going to wrap this up.

Get through the first half of the book because the second half is really good and the ending, of course, leaves you with a crazy cliffhanger. It’s definitely not one of my favorite books, but it was enjoyable.