Blog this item

Evermore

(The Immortals, Book 1)

By Alyson Noël

(209)

| Paperback | 9780312532758

Like Evermore?
Join aNobii to see if your friends read it, and discover similar books!

Book Description

Since a horrible accident claimed the lives of her family, sixteen-year-old Ever can see auras, hear people’s thoughts, and know a person’s life story by touch. Going out of her way to shield herself from human contact to suppress her abilities has branded her as a freak at her new high school—butContinue

4 Reviews

2 people find this helpful

Evermore: ***SPOILERS***

This book was a horrible remake of Twilight. I thought the Twilight series were the worst books ever written but Evermore surpasses them all. There is no intelligent dialogue between Damen and Ever and what the hell was up with Haven's attitude. She was such an obnoxious pompous windbag that should ... (continue)

This book was a horrible remake of Twilight. I thought the Twilight series were the worst books ever written but Evermore surpasses them all. There is no intelligent dialogue between Damen and Ever and what the hell was up with Haven's attitude. She was such an obnoxious pompous windbag that should have died when the chance presented itself. I also don't understand, for the life of me, why the 300+ immortal always falls for and deeply and hopelessly in love with these teenage girls, first of all it's morbid pedophilism and secondly it just downright stupid. Ever had absolutely nothing special about her to warrant an immortals undying love and devotion. I would have much preferred that Damen fell for Ever's bully. That would have been more interesting. And why oh why would an immortal choose to spend his everlasting days enrolled in high school?! WHY?! You're given the gift of immortality and you choose to enroll in school?! Stupid Damen! And seriously why would Picasso and Emily Bronte and Van Gogh and The Beatles give a damn about Damen. And don't even get me started on the surprise date to Disneyland! What? is Ever 6 years old? and the race track! why would anyone who works there let them place bets when they are clearly underage. It doesn't make sense! OMG! and the Tulips! I would have been so annoyed at Damen and all the damn tulips he left everywhere! It's just accumulated trash that Ever has to eventually clean up and the end of the day. Enough with the tulips! I just wanted Ever to shove them down his immortal throat!
I don't know whether Alyson Noel is just a horrible horrible writer or she just thought that teenagers needed a story so dumb downed. I wanted to like this book but I couldn't. I understand that there are people out there that like it, love it, or adore it but it wasn't for me.

Is this helpful?

rawiri*panda said on Apr 5, 2011 | Add your feedback

Da quando tutta la sua famiglia è stata spazzata via da un terribile incidente, Ever riesce a vedere l'aura delle persone, ma anche a sentirne i pensieri, e conoscere la storia della vita di chi sfiora. Il peso di questo dono è tale che decide di evitare per sempre qualsiasi contatto con gli altri e ... (continue)

Da quando tutta la sua famiglia è stata spazzata via da un terribile incidente, Ever riesce a vedere l'aura delle persone, ma anche a sentirne i pensieri, e conoscere la storia della vita di chi sfiora. Il peso di questo dono è tale che decide di evitare per sempre qualsiasi contatto con gli altri esseri umani, ma il suo strano e inspiegabile comportamento fa sì che nella sua nuova scuola tutti la indichino come una specie di mostro; ma tutto cambia di colpo il giorno in cui conosce Damen Auguste, un ragazzo bellissimo, dal fascino esotico e ricco. Ma, soprattutto, è l'unica persona in grado di ridurre al silenzio le voci e l'energia che vorticano nella mente di Ever, con un tocco magico talmente intenso da sembrare in grado di arrivare direttamente alla sua anima. E mentre Ever si immerge sempre più in questo seducente mondo fatto di magia e misteri, nuove domande la assillano: chi è, o cosa è veramente Damen? L'unica certezza è che si sta perdutamente innamorando di lui...

Is this helpful?

Jack said on Aug 6, 2011 | Add your feedback

***NOTE MY REVIEWS OFTEN CONTAIN SPOILERS***
Ever Bloom is the psychic sixteen year old survivor of a car crash that killed her entire family. She wasn’t always psychic, always privy to everyone else’s thoughts, always seeing everyone else’s auras, always seeing ghosts. All of that was an unpleas ... (continue)

***NOTE MY REVIEWS OFTEN CONTAIN SPOILERS***
Ever Bloom is the psychic sixteen year old survivor of a car crash that killed her entire family. She wasn’t always psychic, always privy to everyone else’s thoughts, always seeing everyone else’s auras, always seeing ghosts. All of that was an unpleasant side affect from surviving a wreck that should have killed her, it killed everyone else in her family. When a new boy arrives at school whose thought are completely his own locked up in an attractive body to boot, Ever can’t help but being interested. But Damen Auguste isn’t all that he seems. His presence brings as many questions as much danger as it does happiness and relief. But will Ever discover the truth of just who Damen is and what kind of threat he might pose to her before it’s too late?
Okay part of my rating for this is because of the verb tense used in the book, if you’ve been following my reviews you’ll note that I’m not a fan of the first person present tense. When I read in the present tense I don’t know it’s almost like a picture the character talking straight to me giving me a running commentary of everything that happens to them as it happens. Therefore when things like speech occur within the test it doesn’t fit with my mental picture of the book. This is why I’m of the firm belief that nothing can be written really well in that tense at least not in my personal opinion as a reader. Though I’m sure there are tons of readers and writers who disagree with my opinion on this matter, no matter how many times I read books following this trend I just can’t really get into them the way I could a first person past tense or a third person past tense. I find the present tense to be awkward and difficult to read and get into. Again that’s only my opinion but I have a feeling that I’m not the only reader in the world that feels that way. Also with this tense when boring scenes are skipped or difficult to write scenes are fast forwarded through then told in memories I wonder why the character decided to shut up through those portion since she’s given me a verbal commentary on everything else. With the past tense the story is a memory therefore it makes sense to only convey the good parts, with the present it’s a running commentary therefore the character shouldn’t know what’s going to be a good part and what isn’t since it with the way it written it isn’t happening until the reader begins to read and experience it with her. With that line of thought a streamlined story should not exist because with a running commentary of life even the useless parts should be included because the character doesn’t know at that moment if they’re useless or not. Am I better explaining my aversion to reading the present tense yet?
One of the small irritations I had with this story was the character names because realistically who names their children Ever, Haven and Stacia? To me those names were in fact distracting and while character names shouldn’t matter to me as a reader they do. Some names are just so ludicrous they shape how you picture a character because they’re so far out of place. While it would be boring to have a book filled with Dick, Jane and Joe in this day and age I think extravagant names should be used sparingly and come with some sort of interesting story, ie your parents were high when they decided Ever would be an appropriate name for a child. Though with the popularity of these novels, I won’t be surprised if the name doesn’t become common in newborns born to adoring fans of the series. I personally hope this isn’t the case, but I’ve met too many newborns named Bella to be surprised if the same doesn’t occur with this series.
The larger issues I had with this novel influenced my rating a lot more than name irritations though. For example the two characters are madly in love by the end of the novel of course, because it’s a love story and even if you hadn’t opened the book you could already guess this would be true. However I’m left kind of wondering when that happened because she’s freaked out by him in more than half the novel and many of his behaviors seem more like a stalker’s than a potential mate. Yes he explains to her about past lives etc etc but it doesn’t really go into detail and if it were me just because some really weird guy came up and said I used to be Juliet and he’s still Romeo doesn’t mean I’m going to up and decide he’s my one true love. (BTW that’s just an example not an actual plot point.) There are some interesting scenes that show clear signs of attraction but there’s also a lot of hot and cold with their relationship and I didn’t really get the whole we’re falling in love vibe. I may have gotten a faint falling in lust vibe and some definite teenage crushing, but the idea of the characters actually being in love seems highly unrealistic to me.
The second major issue I had with this story is that Noel has created this neat new paranormal creature, Immortals but she doesn’t go into details of the mythology or even details of the past lives that would have explained the tragic love story. She alludes to things, she may give small short explanations that doesn’t even begin to cover it. But all I really know is some of the characters can live forever and it has something to do with alchemy. That’s not nearly enough background to make these beings seem real to me. If she’s going to create something new instead of relying on well known mythology she needs to give the reader details and back story. I mean I have a pretty good imagination, if I didn’t I wouldn’t be a fiction reader but with something like this I should need to rely completely on my imagination to fill in the blanks. A new being not common to my daily life should be fully explained in detail within the pages of the novel. The concept is pretty cool, but the details are so vague just as they are in the love story that it makes both very hard to believe.
However the story was highly engaging and I did read the entire thing in one sitting, meaning it caught my attention long enough that I never felt the need to walk away from the story. The concepts of the story are extremely romantic and had the appropriate detail been there I’d say it was a truly epic idea. The detailing of the mythology, the powers and the love story were just too vague for me to say the book totally came through for me. I did however really like the characters, especially Riley, her ghostly little sister. I felt the writer did a good job of creating well fleshed out, multifaceted characters. I also thought the story itself was both interesting and engaging with a decently fast pace. Another thing that I really enjoyed about the story is though it’s the beginning of the series we receive a full story arc in the first novel and are given an ending to the story instead of the cliffhangers which have become so frustratingly popular in young adult series. I like knowing that when I pick up a book I’m getting a whole story, not just one piece of the story. I fully intend to read more works by Noel because the potential shown in this one makes me think I’m unlikely to be disappointed with future works.
Overall I don’t think the story qualifies as great, but I definitely think it was a good story which is worth reading.

Is this helpful?

Jenn Donnelly said on Jul 27, 2011 | Add your feedback