Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75267 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

Courtesy of Teens Read Too
Since the accident that killed her family, Ever can see auras, hear people's thoughts, and know a person's life story just by touch. She also has regular conversations with her dead sister. She didn't ask for these new talents and her efforts to hide her gifts have left her a freak at her high school. But when Damen Auguste enters the picture, everything changes.

Damen is movie-star gorgeous, mysterious, and the one person who can block all the psychic energy Ever keeps trying to avoid. Damen and Ever are drawn to each other, but Ever can't shake the feeling that there is something that he's hiding. He's the only person that Ever can't read anything about. Damen has no aura, Ever can't hear his thoughts, and she has know idea who - or what - he really is.

Every once in awhile, a book comes along that I end up getting sucked into and become addicted. EVERMORE was one of those books. When I wasn't reading, I was thinking about how I could sneak away to read some more. I couldn't put it down. I dreamt about this book. When I finished, I couldn't get it out of my head. This book was simply breathtaking.

Ever is a wonderfully realistic character that grows throughout the novel. The guilt she feels over her family's accident and her grieving process are heart-wrenchingly real, as is her growing acceptance of her new psychic gifts. I also loved the scenes with Riley, Ever's little sister. Who knew a ghost could be so funny and charming? I know she's just waiting to have her own series written about her. And Damen...well, what can I say - I'm in love. If you're looking for a new lit-boy crush, Damen is it.

Alyson Noel knows how to write for and about teens, and this is one of her best books yet. I can't wait to find out more about the mysterious Damen and step into Ever's world again.

Combining mystery and romance, EVERMORE is the beginning of the next must-read paranormal series. Be sure to get your hands on this one - you'll be swept away.

Reviewed by: Sarah Bean the Green Bean Teen Queen

I think she doth protest too much
When this came up on the vine programme the thing that made me wish to look at the book was a keyword - vampire. I realised it was a teen romance, not exactly my sub-genre of choice, but someone had tagged the product with vampire and, to be fair, the V word is used. However it is used to deny the fact that the `immortals' are vampires but creatures created alchemically (at least originally). However there are some familiar tropes - I'll put the trope sources in brackets.

Main character Ever is a girl (blonde, unusually, given Twilight) who is an outcast at school (location of Twilight and Vampire Diaries). The main reason for this is that her parents were killed in a car accident (True Blood and Vampire Diaries), as were her sister and pet lamb. She survived but developed the ability to read minds (True Blood, though Sookie's gift was natural and not, evidentially, trauma based) and see auras - the book even has an aura colour chart at the beginning, a pointless exercise as the colours are described so infrequently. She can also see dead people, primarily her sister Riley (a device developed in the Betsy Taylor Undead series - though admittedly not as obvious as a source for the trope).

Along to the school comes a hot guy, Damen (Vampire Diaries or a reverse Twilight), who everyone likes but he seems to be interested in her alone - though he also seems to flirt with other girls too, which makes him that little bit more of a bad boy. He needs an alchemical potion to live - red like blood, but not blood, oh no siree (this takes the Twilight vegetarian vampire one step further into the realms of making them safe, further defangs them and then denies their vampiric source). But he has no aura and she can't read his mind and a point is made that such a lack of aura is normally associated with a dead person. The immortals can create new immortals and the central point of the novel is one of reincarnated love (taken originally from the Weird Tales short I, the Vampire and, more obviously, the soap opera Dark Shadows).

All in all Alyson Noël has written a book that borrows tropes from all over the vampire/fantasy genre but is that necessarily a bad thing? After all the genre has been one of self cannibalism and evolution since Polidori wrote The Vampyre. It is amusing that there is a definitive move to try and distance herself from the genre by stating they are not vampires - a move that only could occur if she realised just how much like certain genre books it was.

However the problem with this book is just how shallow and unlikable the characters were. All the characters were self absorbed and petty. This included Damen - who had centuries to evolve a rounded personality - and Ever herself. Perhaps this is what teen girls are actually all like and perhaps it is what they look for in friends and lovers? If so then it hits home for the target audience, but if so it is a depressing world view.

Derivative, whilst denying its roots with so much vehemence that "I think she doth protest too much" springs to mind, and poorly drawn characters that were shallow, often flat or simply story ciphers.

WOW:)
"WOW!" Was my first reaction after finishing this book. The tears were rolling freely down my cheeks and happiness, sadness, anger, and amazement twisted in my gut. For days after finishing this great whirlwind tale I was still anylising all the little scenes in my head! There is no fault with this book and its plot was riviting. I couldn't put it down and still think about it often. A great read...trust me!
Fans of Twilight (or any similar books) will love this!
xxx:)