Review – Evernight by Claudia Gray (3/5 stars)

This book was more of a romance than a fantasy. That being said it was well-written and kept my attention. It rehashes some subject matter than has (kind of) been visited before in other books. It reminded me a lot of the Twilight series and of The House of Night series. Although it was much higher writing quality than the House of Night series.

Bianca is forced to enroll in the Evernight Academy when her parents move there to become teachers. She doesn’t like the academy and doesn’t seem to get along with the students there. That’s until she bumps into Lucas; Bianca and Lucas seem to have a connection with each other that is beyond a normal teenage crush. With Lucas there Bianca thinks she may just be able to make it through a year at the Academy.

I had one huge problem with this book. I will try my best not to put any spoilers in here… So, let’s just say that the revealing of both Bianca’s family secret and the school’s secret came right out of left field. I wasn’t expecting it. To me the book before the secret was revealed and after the secret was revealed, was almost written like two different books. This really bothered me; I almost went back to read the first half of the book over again because I wanted to make sure it remained consistent with the second half of the book. I didn’t though, and it still bothers me that there was such a style shift mid-book.

Overall this was a fun, well-written, easy to read book. I didn’t think it was incredibly creative; I think it’s rehashing too much of a type of young adult genre that we already have a lot out there for. Some of the aspects of the world created here are interesting but they didn’t really blow me away. The characters were interesting also but not especially engaging.

As for whether or not I will read the next book in the series (if there is one). I don’t know. There is potential for some interesting storytelling here. But at the finish of this book I wasn’t dying to read the next one.