And she's done it! Brodi Ashton has brought the Everneath trilogy home to a satisfying (if bittersweet) conclusion in the final book of the series, Evertrue. Ever the storyteller, Ashton maintains Nikki Beckett's voice throughout as the narrator so the reader can share firsthand in her frustrations, despair, and the way she tries to maintain her good humor throughout. And through Ashton's unique turns of phrase, the reader can tell that she is having a good time with the storytelling too. Examples of the lovely tongue-in-cheek writing style that resonates with the earlier books are lines like ...
"First, your heart," he repeated. "Then, after we get it back, we'll talk about blowing stuff up. I promise."
And my fave ...
"We were out of time from the moment we began."
This book focuses very much on resolving the stories of the three main characters who form somewhat of a romantic triangle throughout the series - Nikki, Jack, and Cole. It focuses on them so much, in fact, that some of the other characters we learned to love in previous book kind of get short shrift here. We have very few appearances from the other folks from high school and the band members, and even Jack's brother Will doesn't have many scenes. The focus is very tightly on the main three characters. It doesn't matter, but I miss the others. They do appear, but don't have much to do. In some ways - and I may be wrong about this - I felt that the first book was really Jack's story, the second was Nikki's story, and the third is Cole's in the sense that each of the characters face their biggest demons (no pun intended, well maybe) in the book I characterize as "their" story.
Also unusual here is that Cole isn't really himself for much of this book, or perhaps if I can say it without giving away too many spoilers he's "more of himself" than in previous books. So some aspects of his cocky personality are demonstrably absent for much of the book, because this is really a story about Cole's character reaching a final resolution. Again, that's both good and bad. I miss the cockier aspects of his personality, but Ashton gives us something new, adding depth to the character and his relationships with Nikki and Jack. Maintaining the mythological aspect, Ashton also stays with the Underworld mythology, but adds in large aspects of the Hercules myth here which is new and very effective.
Overall, the book is more of a character/relationship study between the three major characters leading to a satisfying resolution. There's not so much of the wonderful world-building we saw in the second book, but there's a lot of terrific character development. The best test of a book is whether or not the reader could put it down, which I couldn't. I received it yesterday and stayed up late last night to finish it. Great job, and way to bring a trilogy home, Brodi!
"First, your heart," he repeated. "Then, after we get it back, we'll talk about blowing stuff up. I promise."
And my fave ...
"We were out of time from the moment we began."
This book focuses very much on resolving the stories of the three main characters who form somewhat of a romantic triangle throughout the series - Nikki, Jack, and Cole. It focuses on them so much, in fact, that some of the other characters we learned to love in previous book kind of get short shrift here. We have very few appearances from the other folks from high school and the band members, and even Jack's brother Will doesn't have many scenes. The focus is very tightly on the main three characters. It doesn't matter, but I miss the others. They do appear, but don't have much to do. In some ways - and I may be wrong about this - I felt that the first book was really Jack's story, the second was Nikki's story, and the third is Cole's in the sense that each of the characters face their biggest demons (no pun intended, well maybe) in the book I characterize as "their" story.
Also unusual here is that Cole isn't really himself for much of this book, or perhaps if I can say it without giving away too many spoilers he's "more of himself" than in previous books. So some aspects of his cocky personality are demonstrably absent for much of the book, because this is really a story about Cole's character reaching a final resolution. Again, that's both good and bad. I miss the cockier aspects of his personality, but Ashton gives us something new, adding depth to the character and his relationships with Nikki and Jack. Maintaining the mythological aspect, Ashton also stays with the Underworld mythology, but adds in large aspects of the Hercules myth here which is new and very effective.
Overall, the book is more of a character/relationship study between the three major characters leading to a satisfying resolution. There's not so much of the wonderful world-building we saw in the second book, but there's a lot of terrific character development. The best test of a book is whether or not the reader could put it down, which I couldn't. I received it yesterday and stayed up late last night to finish it. Great job, and way to bring a trilogy home, Brodi!
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