Horror

Prelim review: It gave me chills at times and made me tear up at the end.

Also, who wants to have a Hallow's Eve party like the one in the book?

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For the record I just want to say that while the cover makes me think of Edward Scissorhands, I think it sets the creeptastic mood of this book pretty well. Also, I love Creagh's website. Its beautifully put together and I think reflects Nevermore perfectly.

Moving on.

Nevermore is the sort of book that the concept left me feeling 'meh'. I do not like Edgar Allen Poe. At all. The closest I've ever come is the Simpsons Halloween short they did based around 'The Raven'. In 10th grade I memorized that bloody poem so I could ace English class and that made me never want to go near his works ever again. It wasn't until I began reading reviews that I moved on to wanting to at least check it out. And then Eleni was giving away her ARC and I was like 'good timing!' and thus did it come into my possession.

This is a chilling novel. Even when dealing with the teen angst, Creagh would detour into creepy shadow in the corner of your eye territory. I appreciated that, since otherwise the teen angst would have been unbearable. I'll never understand teenagers, or high school, politics. Didn't understand it when I was a high school student and I sure as rain don't understand it now that my sister is a senior in high school. Izobel perfectly fit that mold for me; I didn't understand half of what she did. Brad seemed to have no redeeming qualities; arrogant, pushy, territorial and aggressive, and this is before he comes onto the radar of the shadows.

The sensation of being watched, or of seeing a shadow fleetingly from the corner of your eye or hearing your name on the wind, that's all used to build up an atmosphere of spooky that slowly begins to surround Izobel. Small things at first--tapping on the window, a guy in the doorway one second and not the next, black birds everywhere--but gradually they became more menacing, more frightening, as the book went on. I don't think I'll be getting the image of the half-eaten bird out of my head for a while let me tell you.

I wasn't sure what to think of Varen at first. The backcover names him as Izobel's 'dream guy', but honestly for the first...half of the book maybe more they spend more time patronizing, sniping and condescending to each other then anything else. I couldn't tell you when things seem to shift, it was such a subtle thing that it crept on me as I was reading, but he slowly went from creeper to kind of romantic in a morbid way. I wish we could have seen more of the story from his perspective--the novel follows Izobel in third person--because so much of what he said, did or behaved was totally at odds with what a sane person would do. I wouldn't say Varen is a flat character, he shows a lot of complexity, but it feels more like he is a half-painted portrait that an artist is describing what it will look like once complete.

Izobel showed a lot of strength, sticking to her idea of 'right' even when allowing the wrong thing to happen would be a form of justice. Gwen annoyed me quite frankly. She was such a spastic character I didn't want her on the page. Alyssa I didn't understand her motivations in hating Izobel so much, if I had pegged anyone to act like that it would have been Nikki, who surprised me by the ending.

My one true complaint about the book is that it was really long. It might have been necessary, to set the menacing atmosphere, but the story felt like a ping pong game at points. Brad is mad at Izobel about Varen, Izobel is worried about Varen, Varen is being cranky towards Izobel, Brad does something to Varen--lather, rinse repeat at least three times. I would have preferred learning more about Varen, or seeing Pinfeather (who I liked, even though he was the very definition of evil menacing creeper) or heck more time spent at the Grim Facade party would have rocked.

The first thing I did when finishing the book was to find out if there is more forthcoming. Thankfully there is. I was tearing up at the end, between Izobel's choice and reality of the situation, I felt so bad for her. I am eagerly anticipating the next book!
( )

Trashy fun until it wasn't.

I knew from the beginning that I was reading this book because I thought it was a fun trip and I wasn't taking it too seriously. I can brush aside a lot of the things that would normally bother me because of this, but it just became a bit of a snooze fest. Why is it so so long?!!!

Other than that, the only notable plot issue for me is the supernatural element. It's not described well at all, and doesn't make any sense lol.

If I was in 9th grade reading Poe and Cask of Amontillado. And most importantly, 13 years old. Maybe then I'd like this book.

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Okay Okay Okay I wrote most of that with 100 pages left. Little did I know. This book ended worse than I even thought and expectations are for FOOLS.

YOU'RE TELLING ME IT WAS JUST INSTALOVE?????

I thought it was going to be they were convolutedly somehow reincarnated versions of Poe and his cousin, or maybe like. He was a vampire or something. THEY HAD NO REASON TO LIKE EACH OTHER!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!

Not a fan. ( )

This is one of those books where the blurb on the back totally gives away important parts of the plot that don't really come in until closer to the end of the book. The last 150 pages or so were pretty intense but everything leading up to it was typical, uninspired, petty high school drama, which didn't even make sense half the time.

I like that the main boy and girl didn't fall for each other right away, but I have no clue why Varen would be interested in Isobel. She pretty much left him to do all the work for their English project and didn't really treat him like a normal person because he was so different from her and because of some rumours she heard about him... I guess the coolest thing she did was stand up for him in front of her friends. But after that, she just becomes kind of helpless and flounders about for a while until the last 150 pages where the action picks up.

Overall, I'm fairly disappointed. This book got such great reviews and has a great premise (Poe, dreams coming to life, pretty awesome right?) but instead of really focusing on that, the author wrote about cheerleaders and jocks versus goths (boring). But I do kind of want to read the next book because it looks like it'll focus more on the paranormal elements and, of course, I'm completely intrigued by Varen. ( )

This is a Poe-style version of twilight but without the vamps and Bella. ( )