Gypsy Reviews

2.5/5 (even though I gave it 2.5 stars, in this case, I can't justify rounding this up to 3 stars).Originally published at Gypsy ReviewsEverneath is a adaptation on the myth of Hades and Persephone and Brodi Ashton is able to put her own twist to it, keeping the foundation of the myth the same but creating her own world on top of it. But even with that, Everneath failed to draw me in with its poorly written characters that struggled to be likable and kept contradicting themselves. The inconsistency in their decisions and thoughts were extremely frustrating. Everneath is unfortunately more of a pretty cover than a great story.Let’s talk about Nikki first. To me, Nikki was whiny, annoying, kept wallowing in self-guilt but did nothing about it. She was constantly changing her decisions and I had no idea if she was capable of holding her own decision for more than 5 pages before changing it again and then reverting back to her original decision. She also talks a lot about taking action but always fails to do so. It was hard to like Nikki, she was boring and flat and it felt cringe-worthy just reading everything she did. She made a huge hasty decision in the beginning that made me facepalm, the way she kept talking about it I thought it was something huge but it was just a hasty assumption that led her to make a terrible decision. More so she blames this decision on Cole whereas she should have been berating herself because she ultimately made the decision herself. Just no Nikki, be the bigger person and take the blame yourself.Jack on the other hand has to be one of the sweetest and nicest characters ever, he was in all honesty, too good for Nikki really. I don’t think she deserved him, after all she had done, I don’t think she deserved all of Jack’s love. He is willing to do anything for Nikki and he is the epitome of love interests I have seen so far. He was incredibly sweet and forgiving but I didn’t get why he liked Nikki. We knew why Nikki liked him but why did Jack like her the first time he saw her? We get a lot of history of their past but not of the events leading before they were together so the development wasn’t really there because they were more or less picking up where they left off. So we just have to assume what their relationship looked like and that seemed too convenient or lazy writing. The story could have been made stronger if we knew why Jack loved Nikki so much.Cole kinda failed as the bad guy. He didn’t seem like a bad guy at all and was easily forgettable to the point where I really couldn’t be bothered with him and I didn’t really care about him. To me, he was just like space filling up the pages. He failed to make an impact between Jack and Nikki and that caused a dent in his bad guy image. If he really was as bad as he supposedly is, he would have been more of a threat to Jack and Nikki but the real threat was really The Tunnels and Nikki’s eventual fate. I guess I was expecting more of a bad side to Cole, you know like The Darkling from Shadow & Bone. Something that would get me loving and hating him at the same time but I just didn’t care about him.There was a lack of depth in the story, not much explanation or development is given in many aspects of the story so the story seemed kind of flat. Ashton didn’t really go into detail sometimes and although they were just small things, sometimes it’s nice to have a little clarification to help visualise that entire scene. For example, what was Nikki’s best club outfit? What did it look like? How does Jules draw attention? We never knew any of them because they were just stated but never explained.I wish the whole story wasn’t just concentrated on Jack and Nikki because Nikki’s return to The Tunnels wouldn’t just affect Jack but a whole lot of people in her circle. I wanted to see more of a relationship between Nikki and Tommy, her little brother, he only pops up in about 3 scenes in the entire book. Their relationship could definitely have been expanded, would have liked to see how she really cares for her brother and her relationship with her father too. There was a lot of potential in their relationships that failed to appear or was just touched on briefly.Honestly, I didn’t like Everneath at all. It was a chore to get through the pages because I didn’t like Nikki at all. I had no plans to actually read Everbound because I didn’t think it would be worth it but the last few pages were good enough to make me want to change my mind. The action happens at the end so everything before that was a drag even though Ashton implemented the whole past and present way of story-telling so we put together the pieces as we go along with the story that makes you want to keep reading to find out what happened. There was some good quotes there though.In overall, I liked Everneath enough, thanks to the last few pages, to get me to read Everbound so if you’re patient and willing to go through a slow beginning and middle, I guess you could read it. The mythology is quite unique and I was going to say I wish it was expanded much more but we’re going to explore more of Everneath (the world, not the book) in Everbound. I just don’t think Everneath was my kind of book despite the fact that I adore mythology, particularly Greek mythology. It just didn’t work out with the characters, they were forgettable and failed to make an impact and I just didn’t care about them, except Jack who I want to give a huge bear hug. If you’re okay with all the cons I’ve written about this book, I say go for it because a lot of people have enjoyed this book so I’m in the minority but if not, best to avoid it.