"I was trying not to feel weirded out that I was in my boyfriend's crypt." (Pierce Oliviera)
Underworld picks up where Abandon left off. After Pierce is attacked by her Fury-possessed grandmother, John whisks her off to the Underworld. There Pierce finds out that one of her family members are in danger and begs John to help her save them.
I dislike the way the main character, Pierce, is written. Pierce is dense and naive. She unnecessarily puts herself at risk and she isn't good at connecting the dots and seeing what's in plain sight. I also don't usually mind when Meg Cabot's characters have rambling internal monologues because they're extremely hilarious to read, but Pierce's internal ramblings are long-winded, annoying and irrelevant.
The worst part of Underworld is the relationship between John and Pierce - which takes precedence over the plot. John is a controlling, manipulative and violent jerk. He holds Pierce captive in the Underworld against her will (and yes, I get that this is a Hades and Persephone retelling, but I don't think Persephone, or anyone else for that matter, would react the way Pierce does). He also lies to Pierce and manipulates her by omitting information so that she can stay with him in the Underworld and neglects to share information about himself because he thinks Pierce would hate him. He's constantly apologizing to Pierce, but he repeats the same mistake that he's apologised for. Pierce just brushes off everything that John does because he's apparently extremely hot. Pierce and John are one of the worst couples I've ever read about.
Underworld also takes place over the course of two days and boy, do those two days drag. Nothing much happens in Underworld and Underworld falls prey to the trend of the second book in a series being a 'filler' book. I don't mind 'filler' books when they have really good character development, but in Underworld I really dislike the characters.
As much as I dislike Underworld, I'm going to pick up Awaken because I want to see how it all ends.
"The important thing was to forgive, my father had once told me. Only then could we move forward..." (Pierce Oliviera)