Customer Reviews

Evermore: The Immortals

5 star:		(112)
4 star:		(83)
3 star:		(70)
2 star:		(56)
1 star:		(76)

 

 

A young girl moves halfway across the country to live with a well-meaning but somewhat distant relative. She's forced to go to school (even though she already knows everything) and to sit next to a mysterious, physically perfect boy who is the object of everyone's attention. Of course, he has eyes only for her. The girl eventually learns that this boy is more than what he seems: he's incredibly fast, he can read minds, and he's lived for a long, long time. This boy is not like other boys, and the girl knows it. She doesn't think she's worthy of his perfection, even though he doesn't seem to be bothered by her normalness. Eventually, one of the boy's own kind shows up to threaten the heroine, who somehow manages to survive, even though, logically, she shouldn't.

Sound familiar? It should. Evermore is basically Twilight, only much more poorly written, with a dash of "quantum physics", a pinch of a glossed-over theory of reincarnation, and a dollop of The Secret for good measure. When I saw that this book was recommended for fans of Stephenie Meyer, I assumed that it would be similar to Twilight. But I didn't think it would be an outright rip-off.

The stories are structured the same, so you can pretty much guess what's around every turn. There are no surprises. And the only time when some real suspense was attempted, it quickly became tiresome. Ever blames herself for the accident. Then she blames herself again... and again... and again. And we don't find out why until almost the very end. I found this tedious and frustrating. It really only needed to be mentioned once, especially if it was going to be dragged out for so long. Show, don't tell... Isn't that the rule?

The writing was also atrocious. The author actually used "envelopes" when she meant "envelops". Once again, we have a young adult novel without an editor. There were run-on sentences galore. Then there was the annoying first-person, present-tense point of view that occasionally lapsed into a first-person, past-tense point of view... when it really shouldn't have. Evermore was difficult to read, and it didn't need to be.

If you know how Twilight ends, you can guess how Evermore ends. Instead of a ballet studio, it's a kitchen. Instead of people getting thrown against mirrors, they're thrown through French doors. And there's a wonderful failure of logic when Ever defeats the villain by throwing a fatal, revenge-fuelled punch at her heart chakra, only to be told moments later by Damen that revenge makes you weaker while love makes you stronger. Wait... what?

When I saw the last couple of pages and took note of the title of the sequel to Evermore, I became further convinced that this series is some sort of satire intended to mock the awfulness of the Twilight "saga". Twilight's sequel was New Moon. Evermore's sequel is... Blue Moon.

The pattern is clear. I'll save you some time and fill you in on the rest of the series:

Blue Moon: Damen decides he's ruined Ever's life enough for one lifetime, so he disappears into Summerland on an extended vacation. Meanwhile, Ever discovers that her friend Miles is also an immortal, who has just landed his dream gig starring in an all-gay revue sponsored by VitaminWater.

Ellipse: An evil immortal from Damen's past comes out of the woodwork and creates a whole bunch of new immortals who do nothing but drive around in Ferraris and act like spoiled brats. But they're a threat, you know? Ever must use her newly acquired skills in "quantum physics" and Transcendental Meditation to make the immortals not so immortal, thus saving Orange County from vapid materialism on a grand scale.

Breaking Wind: Ever finally has sex with Damen, which results in a baby. Unbeknownst to Ever, this baby houses the reincarnated soul of Drina, who wants nothing more than to kill Ever and to marry Damen... who's now her father.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Sometimes I wish I hadn't decided to become a teacher. I'm very glad to be the mother of two daughters, but the double-whammy of teacher/mother means that I feel like I need to read the books the kids are reading so that I'll be able to offer considered opinions.

With the Harry Potter series, it was all a delight. The Series of Unfortunate Events was clever satire and fun to read. Thankfully my students and my daughters were too old for Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but then I got stuck with the Twilight books and spent a lot of time wanting to eat my own head, they were so incredibly fundamentally awful.

And now I get to read them again! With different character names, to be sure. And in these Immortals books, we are now dealing with, well, immortal beings rather than vampires. But honestly? Everything else is exactly the same. Even the cover of the book is a blatant rip-off -- there's even a similar FONT STYLE.

In Evermore, we have a girl with an evocative name (I still haven't stopped rolling my eyes over "Bella Swan," and now I have to deal with "Ever" and I may never get my eyeballs back to where they should be and that was only, like, the FIRST PAGE.) The girl with the evocative name has to move across the country to live with an adult who is completely incompetent in the care of a teenager, but that's okay because the girl has no need of supervision. She is a woman of the world. Luckily for Ever, her weird lawyer auntie is rich, so Ever gets to drive a speedy little Miata instead of a rusty old truck AND she gets to live in a cool mansion in a gated Orange Beach community instead of in Charlie Swan's dumpy house in damp Forks, Washington. You should note that both vehicles are red, though.

Ever is also more fortunate in that she does have a couple of friends, but they're losers in the out crowd (we take a brief foray here into ripping off The Princess Diaries) and she feels as much veiled contempt for them as Bella feels for the young folk of Forks.

And then a NEW BOY shows up at school. Everyone is just flat-out crazy about him. He's obviously wealthy, has looks that could shame Adonis, is brilliant at all subjects without the apparent need to study, is mysterious, is hot and cool by turns (which drives Ever nuts - too bad she wasn't able to read the Twilight series in her world; she could have dealt with Damen's nonsense with a snap of her fingers.) And strangely enough, despite the fact that there is nothing special about Ever, he is immediately and irrevocably attracted to her.

We have to hear a lot about how awesomely awesome-tastic Damen looks. A LOT. Not quite as much as we had to hear about flipping Edward. Alyson Noel managed to restrain herself from telling us about the sweet fabulousness of Damen's breath, a small mercy for which I was very thankful.

A bunch of stuff happens, but if you've read Twilight, you already know the plot. There are parts that make sense and parts that make no sense at all and the message of the book really sucks -- lots of underage drinking and drunkenness, lots of lying to authority figures, lots of cutting school; like Twilight, it's a list of Things Teenagers Can Do to Eff Up Their Lives, only of course there are never, ever, ever any consequences. Noel threw in some reincarnation and some chakras and some transcendental meditation and....a psychic? Hmm. Okay, whatever. Anyway, she tried to throw us off the Twilight scent, but we all have that stench coating the inside of our noses and we can recognize it from miles away, as far from Washington state to southern California, I'd say. Wouldn't you?

If you are a fan of vapid love stories with impossible standards, or a fan of Twilight, you'll probably squeal after reading Evermore. I am a fan of neither, and I"m finding this sudden glut of empty-headed, powerless female protagonists in YA pretty disturbing.
While Noel's writing style flows, it's about the only thing to be commended. One would think the death of an entire family would make a teenager prioritize beyond the shallow culture of high school, but I sure as heck can't name a single hobby or aspiration in Ever's head. She never asks where any of the tulips come from, and while she doesn't like Damen's behavior, she never once reacts to him in a strong, assertive way. Apparently being immortal means you can be a larger jerk than usual. I was utterly miffed as to how Damen's yanking of Ever's emotional chains, "just to make sure she really cared" can be construed as anything but annoying at best and abusive at worst.
Damen commits numerous sins of omission, and Ever somehow never decides she needs to pin him down. It's enough that he's mysterious, gorgeous, and into her. Except when he's not, and Ever BECOMES AN ALCOHOLIC. Don't worry though; it's just for over-the-top dramatic effect. She's promptly able to drop the bottle and leap back into his arms when he returns, without a backward glance at her addiction. Because real teenagers getting smashed on a regular basis are able to do that, right? Right.
The explanations of the fantastical elements veer into the bizarre-leaps-of-logic territory pretty quick. I personally would have had more questions about the afterlife, but Ever simply nods her head like a good little girl. It would also be too much to ask that a devestating loss (such as that suffered by Ever) would make one more spiritual, or even more humanitarian. Heck, I would have even settled for a ethical dilemma on the nature of immortality, which this sort of series would lend itself to nicely. But instead, we're somehow supposed to believe that a 17-year-old making this badly informed of a decision is going to be happy with it at 30. (Or 300.) Good thing she didn't decide to get pregnant.
This kind of reading, in which a female defers to the inordinately immature wisdom of a supernatural male, really shouldn't be so popular. I hope I'm the only one treating this kind of stuff with any seriousness, because I'd hate to think of anyone else taking relationship cues from voyueristic candy.
That the author thinks this is how teenage girls behave in relationships, and that any of this is desirable: it gives the underlying message as You Suck. Because if you're relating to Ever, and cheering her on, you must be just like her. Vapid, shallow, and waiting to be told what to do by the nearest hot guy.
It's a real shame that this is the next YA cash cow.

EVERMORE is probably one of the most idiotic reads I've ever had the displeasure of reading. For one, it is far too similar to TWILIGHT, as countless others have said.

I hate how this novel is just another brainless read in which the entire story is devoted to the girl describing the overly handsome boy in every other sentence. Damen comes off to me as an incredible jerk, one whose actions are never explained. He flirts with other girls and completely ignores Ever on some days, and on other day he is hovering over her acting like a concerned grandma. And throughout all of this fickleness, Ever is just so, so, so infatuated with Damen that she allows him to treat her so. Without a credible explanation. She's like a bloody lapdog or something.
I was extremely frustrated by how incredibly wimpy Ever was as a character. I understand that her reclusiveness was due to the death of her family in an accident she believes she caused, but her personality was just...infuriating. She is, frankly said, a pushover.

There was really no plot to this junk, very reminiscent of TWILIGHT. The majority of the book is all about how Ever thinks Damen is hot but doesn't know what to do with his hot and cold treatment of her, and the climax was really a snore. The villain is pretty obvious from the start and it is exasperating to go through the scenes in Ever's head, what with her cluelessness and depression.

Another thing I highly disliked was how the paranormal part of this story is never fully realized until the end, and that when it was, it was like a freaking dump session. I felt like the explanation of the supernatural was just one big question and answer session in which Ever asks Damen questions about all the supernatural stuff that occurred in the book, and he answers it. There was no step by step enlightenment for Ever, just one big load of information dumped on her, and thus the reader, by the author.

And the language that the author uses! Really, if I wanted dialogue littered with the words "like" and profanity and whatnot, I'll just watch a movie or something. I thought books were supposed to be intellectual, not scripts for a trashy TV show, as EVERMORE clearly is.

The scenes are inconsistent, the writing lackluster, and the characters terrible. Don't read this unless you're looking for a copycat of TWILIGHT.

Oh dear. The only reason I plodded along is because I wanted to give it a fair review. It annoyed me right off the bat when on page 2, Ever is listening to Sid Vicious screaming about Anarchy in the U.K. Um, hello? Johnny Rotten was the lead singer of The Sex Pistols? Sid played bass. This is why they say write what you know. Has she ever even heard the song? Or is she just trying to be cool? Seems like the latter and that is a major fail in my book. How easy is it to check your facts on Wikipedia?

Obviously she doesn't know anything about goth music either. Sure she mentions Bauhaus and Joy Division, but she says something about Haven only pretending to like it because she's so happy. There are plenty of goofy, silly (and yes even happy!) goth songs by The Cure and Siousxie and the Banshees. Newsflash! Not all goths are emo. WTF.

I'm giving it two stars because I liked the story with the sister's ghost visiting, but there were so many plot holes. Something would be happening and it switched gears so fast. Like Haven asking where Miles was and a paragraph later he's talking to them. Huh? Plus, how many times did the author start a sentence with 'And?' Sorry, but the style was aggravating and the ending was groan worthy.

I'm an adult who loves young adult fiction. I hated Twilight and this sounded so much more promising with the character dealing with her family dying. But it didn't work. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

As part of Amazon's Vine Voice program, I request certain books from a list to review. I did not request this book, but by accident it was delivered to me anyway. Knowing ahead of time that I was not among this book's demographic, I decided to do my best and read it in the spirit of the female teens to whom it is obviously marketed. As a thirty year-old male, it's safe to say I'm not exactly familiar with the mindset of today's young ladies, so I presumed to let this book teach me. Here are the lessons I learned from EVERMORE:

NOBODY UNDERSTANDS TEENAGE GIRLS
The protagonist of EVERMORE is a sixteen year-old girl with the unlikely (but super cool!) name of Ever. After a horrific accident wipes out her entire family, Ever becomes capable of seeing auras and hearing thoughts. These powers annoy Ever so much that she withdraws into hoodies and iPods so that she isn't constantly badgered by the signals from her sensitive ESP. Hence, she is perceived as a freak by most of her peers, a label she resents but does nothing to remove.

TEENAGE GIRLS DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND THEMSELVES
A new boy named Damen comes to school. Not only is Damen so attractive that the book explains at least twenty times how hot he is, but Ever cannot sense his aura or thoughts, an anomaly that doesn't appear to bother Ever at all. And even though the book is told from Ever's point of view, and even though it is quite obvious that she and Damen are "meant" for each other, Ever spends most of the book avoiding Damen, and then pining for him from afar. This self-imposed conflict is made even stupider by the fact that the author wants the reader to take as a given that these two people are supposed to be together, in spite of the fact that Damen is frequently a jerk and Ever is willfully idiotic.

PARENTS ARE NOT IMPORTANT
Ever's new guardian is an aunt who (phew!) is ludicrously wealthy and busy. What this means is that Ever has access to any material comfort she could ever want or need, but her aunt is so preoccupied with work, she doesn't muss up Ever's life with annoying parental concerns or stupid things like curfews or personal responsibility. The rest of the children in the story (specifically Ever's friends, Haven and Miles) don't have their little adventures thwarted by any annoying adults.

SUPERNATURAL STUFF IS TOTALLY NATURAL
The most bewildering part of the novel to me is Ever's total acceptance of every bizarre and abnormal thing that happens to her. Of course, she's haunted by the ghost of her dead sister and is privy to people's private thoughts, and that's bound to increase your tolerance of the supernatural, but when Damen begins to fill her life with impossible coincidences and an entire parking lot of tulips from mid-air, Ever reacts mostly with flustered dismissal.

IT'S TOTALLY COOL TO HAVE PROBLEMS
I think that most of humanity's problems stem either from a) two conflicting desires or b) being unaware of what you actually want. The conflicts in this book masquerade as being of either of those varieties (Damen is desired by every available female in the book, supplying problem A, and Ever is still reeling from the loss of her family, a suitable substitution for B) but most of the book's troubles are the result of Ever simply WANTING to be an outcast. It's like going into a store with a wallet full of cash, seeing the outfit you could easily afford and which you desperately want, and then going outside and crying as you dump your money into the sewer. Ms. Noel knows that brooding, moping, glowering, tortured teens are far more attractve than totally fulfilled and peaceful teens (from both a literary and social perspective) and so you have Ever, this girl with tremendous powers that give her a leg up on everyone and which she uses almost not at all.

I'm not among Ms. Noel's target audience, that's for sure. And if this book is a template for the type of people she wants reading her work, then I'm proud that I'm not among them. Vapid, whiney, senseless and contentious, this book only made me realize how glad I am that my teenage days are over.

I just got off reading Twilight and was hoping to find a similar story in Evermore. This book is very similar, but was not what I was hoping. The protagonist is a teenage girl that's basically a social outcast and doesn't know her own beauty even though everyone around her does. There is also the mysterious, dark too good to be true "boyfriend" with special abilities. I really wanted to like this book, but I found lots of major problems I had with it. I became more and more agitated as I read the book with Damen's antics - jerking Ever along and conveniently disappearing throughout the book. I felt like he was Edward's dark, indecisive sometimes jerky twin brother. I can't believe she put up with his crap through the entire book! What is an immortal anyway? It seems like a vampire to me without the sparkly skin and red kool aid was substituted for blood. Also, I couldn't identify with Ever at all in this book. Her decisions just didn't ever make sense. It seemed as if she wasn't a real character - just on autopilot throughout the book. I felt like this book was a jumbled spin off of Twilight. It's almost as if the author threw in too many quirks to make it interesting (or to copy Twilight) but ended up messing it up. Examples - Damen never eating, his "immortal juice" as a spin off of animal blood, Drina ( Victoria), the huge, furniture-less house, the room with the paintings from centuries ago (Carlile's Study) - Damen being strong, fast, beautiful, rich, telepathic - Ever being helpless until the very end when she kills Drina - etc. Did anyone actually understand the canyon part where Drina tried to kill Ever then suddenly Ever was in Summerland with Damen? Weird! I could go on with the jumble of strange, unexplainable events and the obvious copying of Twilight but I think you get the point! This book is the same story line as Twilight, but not as well written or interesting, just with different characters. I gave it a three because it was an ok read and it's given me something to do for the past week of nothing but rain, but I wouldn't continue with the series.

My last review never showed up so I'm trying this again.

The entire book (series, actually. I'm reading book 2 now and it's even worse than this one,) is one big copy of Twilight. mortal girl, immortal boy, magic psychic powers, blah. The author reminds me of one of those kids who's allowed to make their own sandwich so the add mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard and potato chips and m&m's and a banana and whipped cream, chocolate sauce, a slice of cheddar, a slice of ham and a marshmallow, smoosh it up between two pieces of bread and then look confused, wondering why it tastes bad. Ever has too many powers, she can see the future, she can read thoughts, she can see auras, she can touch people and know their whole story, SHE CAN SEE GHOSTS. She is reincarnated. She is immortal. She can travel to an alternate spiritual dimension called Summerland. She doesn't need food, all she has to do is drink "immortal juice", her wounds instantly heal. In the next book she can manifest stuff out of thin air. I mean okay, hello? ENOUGH POWERS ALREADY, GIVE IT A REST! Most of these powers don't even do anything plot-wise, they are just there. And somehow no matter how many powers Ever has, she is still BORING and lame.

The boyfriend Damon is yet another typical bad-boy Edward clone. What turned him of completely to me was the fact that he has an EX-WIFE. And the entire plot revolves around how Ever keeps reincarnating and Damon must find her so that they can be together BUT everytime Ever and Damon are about to XXX for the first time, the evil ex wife of doom comes out of nowhere and kills Ever.

i'm gonna keep reading this series just to see how bad this thing gets.

The characters in this novel were poor and absurdly undeveloped. The story started weak, became weaker, and ended pathetically. Once again, ladies and gentlement, we have another novel on the market where the leading male (Damen) is a "beautiful, godly, perfect, lovely, gorgeous, OMG AHMAZING" piece of meat. I felt like I was reading a fan fiction written by a twelve year old girl. It was like reading another version of Twilight - only twenty times poorer.

Ever was absolutely frustrating - always angry, always playing dumb to things that are obvious. The couple had absolutely no chemistry and I could never believe their idiotic "I love you" "You're my life" comments. If anything, it made me annoyed. Why are we teaching young adults to throw those words around? I couldn't believe their love. It felt fake and cliche. Nothing out of the ordinary or beautiful.

Despite the nice pace and attempt of originality in plot, I don't recommend this book at all. Maybe after three or eight revisions it could have been a respectable read, but it was printed as a failure.

Save your ten bucks for something else.

The underdeveloped characters ruin a promising story. Ever is constantly angry, annoying, and even stupid. Damen is obviously more than human and is constantly leaving very noticeable evidence and yet she never questions it. Instead she gets angry and jealous. I wondered what Damen saw in her. Then again I didn't particularly like either of them. They had zero chemistry and had no interesting dialogue. They weren't funny, smart, or even mildly entertaining. Damen is just "hot" and Ever is just angry ALL THE TIME. The villains were cliche as was the stereotypical gay best friend. The other best friend Haven was just as unlikable. Skip this book!