"Everneath" by Brodi Ashton

(image borrowed from goodreads.com)

2/5 stars

Alrighty.  This book was definitely what you would expect from a typical, paranormal romance.  Basically, this girl Nikki makes a big mistake and ends up becoming a forfeit for this guy Cole, who is actually an Everliving.  Everlivings are immortals that can survive by stealing the energy/emotions from humans.  They are basically a cross between gods and vampires (that feed off energy instead of blood).  Forfeits are the humans that allow the Everlivings to feed off of them.

Anyway, Nikki has been stuck in “the feed” for six months and has basically disappeared up on the service.  So after Nikki has been fed off of, she gets 6 months back in the real world until the Everneath comes to claim her.  Her goal for those six months is to fix things with her family, give proper goodbyes, and hopefully reconnect with her boyfriend Jack.

Nikki isn’t a horrible character.  She is quite likeable, but there were many times when I wanted to smack my head in exasperation, especially in the scenes that happen before the feed.  The romance between her and Jack also had me rolling my eyes.  I eventually did warm up to Jack, although at the beginning I was a bit skeptical of him.  Cole was just an asshole through and through.  There were some moments where he seemed like an okay guy, and then he would do something that made me totally hate him all over again. 

I was also annoyed by the author’s attempts at writing “lyrically.”  It’s something I’ve been seeing from a lot of from YA authors.  Just a lot of added details that aren’t really needed and sometimes sound ridiculous.  It’s not horribly written.  In fact it’s pretty well done.  But some of the details... ugh!  My favorite from this book (and I’m paraphrasing here because I listed to an MP3 of this through my public library) was when the main character says that her “fingers began to sweat.”  Really?!  Who thinks about their fingertips sweating?  Hands, yes.  Fingertips?  No.  At least I’ve never thought about my fingertips sweating. 

I will say that the story can be very exciting at times and at the end, I was curious as to what would happen next.  Teenage girls who want that romantic feel and a kind of love triangle will definitely like this book.  I think if I was back in high school I would have loved this book.  Sadly, I’m a crotchety 28-year-old J.