Evermore (The Immortals, #1)

by Alyson Noël

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

In the rush of books hastily published on the wake of Twilight's success, there's only about 5% that are well-written, worthwhile books.

Evermore is not quite one of them.

Evermore is about a girl who survives a car crash that killed her family.  She comes out of the accident with a near-death experience and goes to live with her wealthy young aunt who is rarely around and deals with her newfound psychic abilities by hiding in awkward hoodies and loud music.  Then she meets Damen.  Damen is the only person whose thoughts are quiet in Ever's head.  And he's drop dead gorgeous.  And she won't let you forget it.

I listened to this book slowly.  The narrator was fine, but the one-dimensional characters were tiring, and it's a story we've all heard before.  It's a young supernatural romance and we deal with a "blonde goddess", a goth girl, a stereotypical gay best friend, and a Brooding YA Hero.  Before you get excited that this is a vampire book, it's not.  At least, the author repeatedly tells you it's not.  They drink a "strange red liquid" and can materialize flowers and live forever and heal instantly and move faster than light, but they are not vampires.

You know what kills me most about Evermore?  If you take out Damen and look at the story from the psychic POV and follow Ever and Riley's story... it's a good book.  The sibling story was what kept me reading.  Unfortunately, this was relegated to subplot in the face of the YA paranormal romance due to the publishing needs at the time.

I will be honest and say I expected Evermore to be worse, and I was pleased to discover parts I enjoyed.  Fans of cheesy YA romance and paranormal romance will love this.  For myself, I won't continue on with the series (the parts I enjoyed were all resolved in this book) but I would give Alyson Noel another chance.