So I love the theme, (which plays into my biases quite well), and I found Ever fascinating. Since something kept me turning the pages, I spent the better part of an hour on goodreads.com trying to see what other positive aspects I might have overlooked. Most people found the theme annoyingly trite and Ever unlikeable. So I've summed the positive aspects of this novel up in a paragraph, and there is a lot left to say.
Damen transfers into Ever's new high school only a few months after she goes to live with her aunt. The whole school is obsessed with him. Ever tries to avoid him, and then next thing you know they're making out. While he has been compared to Edward Cullen, (he's good at everything, rich, irresistibly handsome and hundreds of years old) Edward Cullen has more class than this dimwit loser could ever hope to have. And it's not just that the Edward's a gentleman and Damen spends the novel and apparently countless reincarnated lifetimes (he's immortal and she's been reincarnated a number of times) trying to "get into her pants." (This is actually written into the book more than once). She's nearly annihilated more than once and he's no where to be found. So would not have happened to Bella! But more than that he's so unbelievably flat. We know he's hot. We don't know how he's hot because he's never actually described. We just know he has dark hair, dark eyes, and is irresistibly sexy. (My husband had dark hair and eyes. He could be Damen. No, wait if someone were trying to kill me, I'm pretty sure he would be there). He knows all the answers in class, and is good at art and diving. We know nothing else about him! He likes to give girls flowers, but not stand up for them. He likes to try to have sex after one date, but maintains he "knows how to wait." When I was in high school, there is no way in hell I would have dated this guy, and I couldn't read minds! Ever, you can do better than this.
The romance is unauthentic and awkward. She goes from wanting to avoid him to making it out with him overnight. And you don't even know why she's interested in him--the good looks I guess.
Okay, so we have a teen age psychic in a relationship with an immortal--not a vampire. (That's a new take, I guess there was one positive feature I overlooked). We don't know why they're in a relationship. He's lusting after her and she thinks he's hot, so I guess that's it. Now enters the crazy wife who wants to kill Ever and immortalize her best friend. She has successfully killed Ever in numerous previous life times. Damen always gets back with her while Ever is waiting to be reincarnated. If the teen speak (addressed in the next paragraph) hadn't already drove me mad this is where I would have put the book down and screamed. Sweetheart, if the boy who you've already said only wants to "get in your pants" returns to the wife he hasn't taken the trouble to divorce or imprison in some alternate plane, you know what he wants. Kick the loser to the curb.
Now for the one issue that almost kept me from finishing the book. Seriously, it's a first person narration from a teen age perspective. I could deal with the "likes." But the words I go don't start a conversation. I said, I claim, I state, all are fine. There were countless options to choose from. I have no idea why the words "I go" were more than once used as dialogue tags. The teen speak was horrible. And the writing style had numerous other flaws. Most of the story was present tense except of the occasional slips to past tense, pick one please.
If you have several free hours on your hands, nothing else in your library and a free copy of Evermore, it might be worth reading for the theme alone. However, if you have something more productive you could be doing, like building a paper airplane by all means do it. The Immortals series for me is never more!
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