Left me wanting...

TITLE: Ever
AUTHOR: Jessa Russo
PRINT LENGTH: 296 Pages
MY RATING:  aa
PUBLISHED: September 20, 2012
LANGUAGE: English
RATING: Young Adult
GENRE:  Paranormal
PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon 

SUMMARY:  Seventeen-year-old Ever’s love life has been on hold for the past two years. She’s secretly in love with her best friend Frankie, and he’s completely oblivious. Of course, it doesn't help that he’s dead, and waking up to his ghost every day has made moving on nearly impossible.

Frustrated and desperate for something real, Ever finds herself falling for her hot new neighbor Toby. But falling for Toby comes with a price that throws Ever’s life into a whirlwind of chaos and drama. More than hearts are on the line, and more than Ever will suffer.

REVIEW:

Okay I sat here for the last hour looking over my notes and wondering what the heck I was going to write about this book. First let me say I enjoyed the overall thought behind the book, but it seriously left me wanting. I finished this book with more questions than I had answers. 

Let me say this about the characters we have Ever (hate the name) she is a young girl 17, who has a dead boyfriend living in her house (strange yep) and she sees a guy move in across the street and totally loses all her brains (if she had any to begin with). Then we have Toby, the boy who moves in across the road (except he’s no boy 22 is a man) Then we have to deal with Frankie. Frankie is the “ghost” who Ever has loved all her life, the ghost who completely accepted his death and his afterlife living in Ever’s home. Okay he is the most unemotional person you could ever read about. His character itself needs to be fleshed out dramatically because I had no feelings towards this ghost at all. In fact I can honestly say I didn’t feel much for ANY of the characters.

The story itself leaves me wanting. I wonder how things happen, why they happen, and what is the end result a very unhappy reader.

Now the things I hated are the insta-love or obsessions that we seem to deal with in a lot of these YA books. The second is that the female was in no way a heroine. Where is the strong, independent female protagonist with a few brain cells. And love triangles need to be real love triangles. Sure it’s okay for a young girl to be flirting with two guys or even making out with them but this does not make a love-triangle, what this makes is a confusing mess. And last but certainly not least is first we have the untimely death of Frankie in a car accident. Then 2 years later, Ever raves on about how he’s her only love then poof Toby moves in and she suddenly forgets all about Frankie who happens to live in her home as a ghost, then her father and mother seem to be all huggy kissy and then HE well I don’t want to spoil it but let’s say it’s a bit too ummmm well nope won’t spoil it no matter how much I want to… *sighs* And the insta arousal in times of tragedy are just so not going to happen to ANYONE… And oh we must not forget all about the lets have sex right after breaking up with my boyfriend. ACK! What utter rubbish. I was so disappointed in this story that I nearly cried while writing this review.

Now I always try to find the good in the books I read, especially in books by newcomers, so I have to say the cover is very beautiful and haunting. If only the story had lived up to its cover. I had such high hopes for this book due to the cover, goes to show never judge a book by its cover. I will probably read the next book if only to answer the questions I have now and hopefully by then the author will flesh out these characters so that they are more realistic.

Details/Disclaimer: Review copy was provided to me in exchange for a fair and honest review. The free book held no determination on my personal review.