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Thursday, August 27, 2009

Evermore by Alyson Noel


Since the accident that claimed her family, 16-year-old Ever can see auras,
hear
people's thoughts, and know a person's entire history through one
touch.
She's
been branded a freak at her new high school, but everything
changes when Ever
meets the mysterious Damen August.

Originality- 6/10
Characters- 9/20
Remembrance- 6/10
Setting- 10/20
Plot- 15/20
Ending- 6/10
Recommend To Read- 7/10
Total- 59/100
Grade- (unfortunately) F

I'm not going to sugar-coat this.

Just like how I said on my livejournal, this book was like Twilight's bastard child.

And, no, I'm not one of those people who see Twilight in every book -or complain when Twilight is not readily detailed in every book. It's just - you must see the signs.

Sure, as my friend says, the similarities that Twilight and Evermore share, a lot of other books have those similarities as well.

Well, I have never seen so many common details displayed so blatantly.

Disregarding those (because I don't want you to believe I rated it so badly on the resemblance between it and Twilight) I must explain the rating.

I gave it a 6 in Originality, and I was being generous. The whole Immortal concept - while seeming like a tweaked description of a vampire (including their dietary habits) - in itself was Original. Other than that, nothing really jumped out at me.

The characters got a 9 out of 20 because I can't say that I liked any one character. Honestly, if you gave them different names and put them in a different book I wouldn't be able to tell. The characters were too ordinary for me - too blah, too cliche. I just didn't like them. Especially not the leading characters. I understood that Ever had trouble with her powers but her overly selfish ways and her annoying pride made me instantly dislike her. Damen had odd and idiotic methods with courting Ever for a 617-year old boy, and his arrogance and secrecy made me dislike him nearly as instant as Ever, as well. It seemed that these books only showed the negative side of their personality, and never properly let the characters shine.

I wouldn't be able to remember this book well, just because of the Originality of the book. Like I said, the Immortal concept seems like the only redeeming quality.

The setting? Come on. It's California. The author barely did anything to describe the setting, other than mentioning it once or twice. I never felt like Ever was where she was. She never felt the breeze, the sun never glared down into her face, there was never a rustle in the leaves. The only things mentioned were the beaches, and that was only when it was convenient.

The plot was a boring forever love-story that I've read tons of. I didn't impress me, and only made me want to go back and read the originals where the villains were actually frightening instead of bitchy stalker-ish ex-wives. I wanted the friends to be real, not the "Omigod! Ever!" we got in this book. It seemed like that was the only dialogue, actually.

I recommend that you read it solely to see if it reminds you guys of other books.

For me? It was Soulmate by L.J. Smith.

It's almost crazy how much alike these two are.

Check that out to see the proper telling of love gone sour through the ages.

Tay-Toe

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahaha, why does reading this make me wanna read the book. No matter how awful it may be, i'm curious. Interesting,

anyways, good luck in the furture book reviewing business. I'm rooting for you sweetie!

-Emily

La Coccinelle said...

I thought the same thing when I read Evermore. It was like, "Didn't I already read this? Oh, yeah. I did. It was called Twilight." The similarities were just too obvious to be ignored.

How are you enjoying the sequel?

Taylor House said...

I liked it. In some ways it was better than Evermore, but I still had the distinct feeling that I'd read it before. =) Thank you!