ammaarah
"Our secrets protect us, Bianca. Someday you'll understand that."
Evernight has elements that make for a great guilty-pleasure read - a boarding school, wealthy preppy teens, romance and vampires.
Bianca, the main character, starts her first day at Evernight Academy and is immediately an outsider. She can't make friends easily and is picked on by the stereotypical mean girls. Bianca is one of those characters who sees herself as plain and she doesn't think she's as beautiful as everyone else in Evernight. She is also the same person who describes herself as beautiful, is continuously told by other characters that she's beautiful and ends up finding romance after the first 20 pages. Evernight becomes even more original when cringy instalove and a love triangle are added to the mix.
At about the halfway mark, there's a plot twist that literally comes out of nowhere and suddenly Bianca casually provides information that she either should have found weird or should have informed the reader about before the plot twist was revealed, instead of blindsiding. Examples are the fact that she drinks blood from the butcher with every meal and the information and stories that her parents told her. If Bianca knew about vampires before coming to Evernight, then she stupid for not guessing that most of the students are vampires.
The second half is more interesting and readable than the first half because of the action and supernatural elements as well as an an interesting plot twist the appearance of vampire-hunters like the Black Cross, which is also the only plot twist that I remembered before my reread, so it was more interesting than shocking.
Bianca is a relatable character. She's shy and smart and able to make her own decisions and her actions are understandable. She's also extremely close to her parents and has a genuine relationship with them. It's great to see present parents in YA. Another great thing is that Evernight is still a boarding school and there's classes, homework and tests and Bianca still has to put the effort in by doing homework and studying.
The instalove is terrible and 43 pages into Evernight, Bianca is already saying,
"Already I wanted Lucas to belong to me."
I like that the romance element is gender-bending from its usual stereotypical portrayal because Bianca is the vampire and Lucas is the human/vampire hunter. The love triangle is annoying and unnecessary, but it isn't a prominent part of Evernight. What makes it worse is that Balthazar is the more swoony gentleman, while Lucas is the typical unattainable, problematic love interest. Lucas and Bianca are suitable for each though and Balthazar can do way better.
It's like the author had a checklist with all the extremely popular tropes and elements in YA and vampire fiction while writing Evernight so it ended up being cliché. If only the first half of the book held my attention as well as the second half did...
"What had seemed like love was betrayal."
