Everneath by Brodi Ashton
“I had been in his
arms, but I hadn’t seen his face for a century. It was the same…. ‘You… you’re
still the same Nikki. You survived…. I mean, I’ve searched for you—for someone
like you—for thousands of years…. You have no idea what this means. This.
Never. Happens. Nik, you don’t have to go to the Tunnels. You can stay with me.
Become an Everling.’” (Page 5)
Nikki is a seventeen-year-old girl, wrenched from her normal
world into Everneath, where she must stay for a century with a guy named Cole.
Everneath is a place in-between earth and hell; in this place there are
immortal creatures who are called Everling. However, in order to stay immortal
they must feed off the energy of humans. Most of the humans, though, do not
survive, being fed off, and go to a place called the Tunnels where the humans
must spend eternity suffering. However, Nikki survived, because she has special
ties to the Everling. After Cole fed off her, she was given a choice: stay
with Cole and become an Everling or go to the Tunnels.
Nikki decides that she will go to the Tunnels. She would
rather suffer forever than destroy other people’s lives by feeding on them.
Also, there is Jake. Jake was her boyfriend before she went to Everneath, and
while she was in Everneath he was the one person she thought of constantly,
wishing to go back at least one more time to say goodbye. She is allowed to go
to the Tunnels but is given six months to be on the Surface (earth); during
this time, however, she is still hassled by Cole. Cole wants Nikki to become an
Everling and join him in order to take over the throne. The story also mixes
Greek mythology (the stories of Persephone and Hades and Orpheus and Eurydice).
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This story is slow-paced, since it takes a long time for the
reader to understand what Cole’s true motives for wanting Nikki as queen are.
The story also goes back and forth between the past and present and, although
it works, it slows the story down. I didn’t really enjoy the story as much as I
had thought I would, because I found the main character Nikki was described as
defenseless all the time, and she was unsure of what she wanted. I also thought
that Nikki was annoying. Her character is portrayed as being weak all the
time. She has six months to live on the Surface and has come back from what is
essentially hell to be with Jake or at least talk to him but, no, she doesn’t
find the words, she doesn’t know if he feels the same way, she can’t tell him
what happened, etc. Three months pass and she still can’t find the words to
tell him anything except for a few sentences once in while. I just wished that
her character would be a little bit stronger once in a while. I wouldn’t
recommend this book if you don’t like slow moving stories with annoying first
person characters.
By Gilma Velasquez
