Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Everneath by Brodi Ashton

First in the Everneath series

3.5 stars
Last spring, Nikki Beckett went into the underworld known as the Everneath. The Everneath is inhabited by Everlings, mortals who discovered a way to acquire immortality by sucking emotions out of humans. Nikki has returned to the “Surface” where she has six months to make everything right before the Tunnels come to clame. Nikki spent that century in the Everneath hanging on to the face of her boyfriend, Jack. She just wants everything to be somewhat normal, but Cole the Everling that brought her to the Feed wants to bring Nikki back and make her his queen. The first half of this book was confusing. I didn’t know anything about the Everneath, Forfeits, the Feed, Everlings, or the Tunnels and to be honest I still don’t know hardly anything about them other than that they are there. I wanted to love this book because it is based on a myth and I love Greek mythology, but this book was lacking. I’m not sure what it was but something felt off or left out. I want to talk about the characters we were introduced to.

The main female character is Nikki. I don’t like Nikki. I think she’s selfish and stupid. I’m tired of her constant lying to protect Jack when it only makes things worse. There was this one quote at the end of the novel that made me laugh, here it is. “You’re stalwart in your selflessness, to the point of self-destruction.” Let’s talk about this. If stalwart means brave, strong, or valiant and Nikki is none of those things. I think she’s stupid and this stupidity causes her so called “bravery”. Selflessness, Nikki is not one of those things, if she was she would’ve kept her butt in the Everneath or went straight to the Tunnels instead of causing all these people unwanted grief and misery. Self-destruction, I agree with that a 100%. There was a point where I thought Nikki might bring out a razor and start cutting because her life is oh so unfair. I tried to like her, I did, she’s not a Mary Sue she’s just a dumb selfish heroine that I just couldn’t connect or have any sympathy for. I used this gif in one of my status updates and I think it explains my feelings toward her so well.


Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 3
The main male characters are Jack and Cole. Jack isn’t anything special. I’m just glad he’s not an egotistical jerk that pushes Nikki around because if she went back to the “Surface” for that I would’ve been pissed. Jack was a pretty dull character to me, but because of what he did at the end I like him a lot more and he’s the selfless one not Nikki. Cole, I thought I would love him because of the description, but no, he didn’t elicit any strong swoon worthy feelings. Cole had his moments of gold and I probably would’ve liked a POV for him. These male characters weren’t developed and I didn’t learn anything about Cole’s past and Jack wasn’t all that well developed either.


Swoon Worthy Scale: Jack- 6 Cole- 6.5

The Villain- I guess you could consider Cole the villain or maybe the Tunnels, but there wasn’t really an actual villain. There was no one to cause Nikki problems and amuse me. I think the author threw in this Lacey chick (that’s her name right?) just because it was expected in a YA novel.


Villain Scale: 2




Jules wasn’t a developed character either. In fact, it was hard to believe her and Nikki were best friends before the Feed because they hardly talked and when they “made up” it was like three paragraphs and we didn’t even get any meaningful conversation. Nikki’s family wasn’t well-developed either. They were just there and I have nothing to say about them.


Character Scale: 6

These characters were terrible and they were underdeveloped and I felt like it was all about Nikki when she isn’t really a great character. I want to discuss the love triangle. There were I consider two love triangles. The first one is Nikki, Jack, and Cole. This love triangle was expected and not well executed at all. I don’t hate love triangles, but I’m not a fan of them especially if it’s an underdeveloped one that’s severely lacking in the romance department. The second love triangle is Jack, Nikki, and Jules. I think Nikki should have stayed in the Everneath and become Cole’s queen. Jack and Jules should’ve gotten happiness. They were hurt and they were each other’s shoulder to cry on. Nikki just had to come and mess everything up. I would’ve liked this book if Nikki would’ve been a cool heroine and became queen of the underworld. Do you know how awesome of a book that would’ve been? I think it would’ve been downright amazing. I guess I was expecting to be blown away, but really I wasn’t. I liked Everneath and I’ll continue the series, but I didn’t love this book and it is one of my favorites.


Cover Thoughts: I think the cover is beautiful, but I don’t like the yellow. I would’ve like it if it looked like Nikki was getting sucked into the Tunnels. I think those are the Tunnels, that’s what I pictured them to look like.