Title: Evermore
Author: Alyson Noel
Series: Immortals #1
Twilight knock-off, pathetic characters, ridiculous paranormal elements
Well.
I’ll start off by saying that I listened to the audiobooks of the first and second books of this series, and I’m not sure if I’ll listen to the others. They’re narrated by Katie Schorr, who has potential but was by no means skilled at the point when she recorded these. I hope she’s gotten better with practice. She reads in a pleasant, engaging manner that draws you in, but she doesn’t use various pitches to identify different characters, doesn’t make her voice husky for Haven or even lower her voice when the males speak, which seriously threw me off, because it all sounded like one character, one speaker, and I never got used to it. I have no idea why she wouldn’t, but it could only have helped. If she can’t voice act, why on earth is she voice acting? (And this is a review of Evermore, but I have to say, she tries a British accent in the second book and It. Is. Awful. Like, comically so. I wanted to giggle whenever she used it.) But with practice and quite a bit more effort, it seems, I believe she could be really good.
But she’s not a deal breaker, and not why I’m on the fence about reading further into the series. The writing… It wasn’t the best I’ve read, and it wasn’t the worst, at least as far as style goes. Another case of getting better with practice. The dialogue could have been more varied and personalized to the characters, they all seemed to have the same speech pattern, and for some reason I had a hard time picturing Damen saying the things he did, but that could have just been because he was read as if he were a girl. It was difficult, audibly, to identify who was speaking until his or her name was provided after the quote. It was also difficult to figure out whether Ever was speaking or thinking, likely due to aforementioned factors and the first-person narrative.
While the story made me curious enough to listen to book two, it was hardly original or even very intriguing. If you’ve read or watched the Twilight series, you will immediately draw parallels that are so blatant it’s clear this series was written and marketed during the height of the vampire craze, while the films were exploding into a phenomenon. There’s even a meadow where they bond. (SPOILERS AHEAD, BEWARE) It appears Ms. Noel thought she was being clever when she led Ever—and us—to think that Damen was a vampire, then—surprise—has Damen laugh at Ever’s suspicions and say vampires don’t exist. To me that meant that Noel was very aware her plot was a Twilight knock-off, and while she might have only been trying to acknowledge it, it came across as mocking. Like, “Haha, I know it’s obvious, but you can’t prove it, cuz there are no vampires! Ha ha!” Thoroughly sick of vampires myself, I was not amused. She seemed to put more effort into directing us toward the false vampire reveal than thinking through what she really had Damen be, because she went straight from little elements of paranormality into full-on other dimensions, quantum physics, and mind-over-matter meditation. She tried to explain paranormality with sci-fi, and while I can see how that might work, she did it in such a slapped-together, afterthought sort of way that it seemed more like made-up excuses than reasonable explanations. (Then in the second book she adds witchcraft, and it all just tumbles into a clusterfug.) Overall, the plot was unoriginal, and she desperately tried to hide that behind crap that didn’t make any fugging sense. (One of the characters uses the euphemism “fug,” so I thought it was appropriate.) Lastly, as to the pace, it was tedious. Too much internal dialogue, not enough action. About two-thirds through I actually cried aloud, “Would something just happen already?! Oh my god, Ever, grow some balls and demand some answers!”
Which leads me to the characters. They were all self-involved, insecure, and immature. I get that they were teenagers, but seriously, they were all brats. It was okay with Ever’s little sister Riley, though, because she was twelve and somehow made those traits endearing, and it was okay with the aunt, because she didn’t know how to go from a single workaholic to a parent of a sixteen-year-old, and really made an effort to be a good surrogate mother, shedding those traits in due time.
I couldn’t decide if I liked Ever or not, but I’m thinking not. She had no spunk, she had no attitude, she didn’t stick up for herself. She never pulled back her shoulders, straightened her spine, and said enough was enough. Not to her classmates, not to her friends, not to Damen, and especially not to herself. I get why she was all woe-is-me; she suffered a terrible tragedy. But she didn’t make any effort to move on, or even pretend to. She just let her grief, misery, and confusion consume her and drag her down into a well of self-pity she never seemed to climb out of, not even in the sequel. I would bet she remains drowning in that well throughout the series. She was so tolerant, almost indulgent, toward Damen’s antics that I wanted to slap her. And I think she was supposed to be reasonably intelligent, but I didn’t see much evidence of it. She was obtuse, in all honesty.
Oh, and can we just take a minute to acknowledge her weird name, since Noel and the characters never do? Ever Bloom. She’s reincarnated several times. Get it? She blooms over and over again. Subtle as a punch in the face.
I really didn’t like Damen. He made no sense, either, as if Noel’s efforts to draw out the intrigue—and the word count—kept her from portraying him as she wanted to. He was supposed to be this lover boy whose unending existence revolved around Ever, but I thought he was extremely anal-retentive and high-handed, dictating the terms of their relationship and dragging her around on a leash, taking advantage of her being star-struck over him to woo her with sappy romantic gestures that robbed him of his testosterone. When they’re finally “together” (if you can call it that because they’re relationship goes so fast and is so poorly developed), he becomes rather absent, described several times as having a far-away, deep-in-thought expression, and about all the information he shares about himself are lies/evasions and declarations of undying love. He’s still a stranger by the end of the book, and doesn’t relate any better in the second. (SPOILERS AHEAD, BEWARE) And I don’t understand why he didn’t try to explain things to her. He wanted to be in a relationship with her, and he knew he’d made her immortal. I think. That wasn’t very well explained, either. But he went so far as to wipe her memory to keep his secret, which would have been a deal breaker for me, if I was still putting up with his unforthcoming crap, were I in Ever’s spot. I’d have put my foot down and told him that if he wasn’t going to share himself with me, I sure as fug wasn’t going to share myself with him. It really bothered me that they were supposed to be soulmates and true loves and want to spend the rest of their lives together and yet there really was no relationship to speak of. Also, he was such a bad influence on her! Cutting school, breaking laws, doing whatever they wanted. And why didn’t he have some sort of honest career? Yeah, the world thought he was seventeen and he would never age (theoretically), which someone might have noticed, but he’d been alive six hundred years! He could have thought of something besides using his abilities to cheat at the races and win a sickening amount of money without hardly lifting a finger. It was mentioned, just once, ex machina, that he had been a model and an artist, neither of which seems like a good idea for someone trying to keep a low profile. I might have had a little more respect for him if he’d been doing something worthwhile. Maybe he had before the timeline of the book, but we don’t know, because he never shared.
Anyway. Ever, Haven, and Miles were apparently their own little “loser” clique in school, but I think no one wanted to put up with their moaning and groaning. Haven was an ungrateful bee with an itch who expected people to take her “dibs” on Damen seriously, which is probably the stupidest thing in the entire book, and when Damen showed no interest in her, she still blamed Ever for stealing him away, even though Ever was trying to stay away from him, which is petty and nonsensical. She wasn’t accepted in her family and was always searching for acceptance and acknowledgement from others (she was a serial Anons-meeting crasher), but she took for granted the two people who did accept her and threw their friendship back in their faces, or at least she did with Ever. Miles had SO much potential as a lovable character, I wanted so badly to like him, but he had more of a relationship with his phone and slew of boyfriends than he did with Ever and Haven. I truly believe they’d all have been happier if they’d focused on each other and tried to be a team instead of themselves.
So if you’re a Twihard, you’ll either be enraged by the ripped-off plot or ecstatic for more of the same. If you’re not a Twihard, you’ll either admire Noel for taking advantage of the current market, like any good businessperson, or you’ll despise her for trying to ride the wave. I’ll hang on to the next two audiobooks of the series until my library loan expires, in case I’m desperate for reading material. Otherwise, I’ve had my fill of this series.
