Evernight by Claudia Gray

I'm not very good at reviews and that sort of thing, but I am going to tell you my reactions.

I sat down this morning about three chapters into Evernight and started reading while I ate my breakfast. It has been too long since I've read a book (instead of written one) that I had forgotten how much I had always enjoyed it. So I started reading from chapter 3 at 10:00am and finished the entire book about 4:00pm. Obviously I got up during that stretch to start laundry and make lunch and such. But overall I was quite addicted to Bianca and Lucas. However, let me admit this now: I was rooting for Balthazar. But then again, just as Balthazar states, "I guess I have a soft spot for the underdog in any fight."

CAUTION: SPOILERS

Evernight by Claudia Gray

At the eerily Gothic Evernight Academy, the other students are sleek, smart, and almost predatory. Bianca knows she doesn't fit in.

When she meets handsome, brooding Lucas, he warns her to be careful - even when it comes to caring about him. But the connection between them can't be denied. Bianca will risk anything to be with Lucas, but dark secrets are fated to tear them apart ... and to make Bianca question everything she's ever believed.

From the beginning of Evernight, the MC, Bianca, is not a confident 16-year-old girl who has been forced to attend Evernight academy by her parents who have taken teaching positions at the school. That definitely doesn't make assimilating into an all-vampire boarding school any easier. Too bad "Blood" wasn't even mentioned until page 139 and "vampire" wasn't even mentioned until page 141 ... and not even by the MC. But that wasn't what got me. What really got me was the weak female MC, Bianca. I believe in strong heroines that don't rely on love to make them whole and feel as if they can conquer all. That was the only issue I really had with this book.

Bianca is a vampire herself, although not fully. She is a special case, born to two vampires, which only happens to about a dozen each century. She still hasn't gone through the complete change, which would require her to kill a human. Actually, she's never even had fresh human blood.

Until Lucas, a human, is admitted into the school, along with about thirty other humans. This, of course, has never taken place at Evernight Academy before.

Obviously Bianca and Lucas fall in love and the whole shebang. Typical YA. (Btw, I'm not very much on the whole romance side of things so don't get me wrong if you like romance. I'm just not that person.)

Bianca leaves us at the end of Evernight alone and miserable, yet still hopeful. She's willing to risk the trust she has gained from her parents and teachers in order to help her vampire hunter boyfriend, Lucas, find out why exactly Mrs. Bethany, Evernight's headmistress, is finally admitting humans into the school.

As soon as Lucas and Bianca met at the beginning of the book, I automatically resigned myself to wondering why I'm still reading YA. Honestly, I wasn't sure because as soon as Lucas told Bianca to be careful, even to be careful when it came to caring about him, I was automatically disappointed because that's a clear sign that tells the reader, "Hey, this guy has a huge-ass secret. Watch out for clues." But about the mid-point of the book I remembered >> YA authors always have the best spins and subplots.

It's true.

Up until about the middle of the book I was honestly so bored with the entire boarding school spin on teen romance that I was about to just put the book down forever. The first thought I had was, "Man, this is going to be like the Gallagher Girls without the whole spy thing." Part of that was my fault because I am very dedicated to fast-paced science fiction and fantasy novels and not romance (especially since I write them myself and write them at a fast pace). I prefer books with lots of supernatural and very little romance.

But boy, was I wrong.

I had originally started reading this book because a friend of mine had told me, being the supernatural fan that I am, that I would really enjoy it ... although Stargazer was better. But I had to get through Evernight first. I thought she was pulling my leg once I started reading the book. I was cursing myself for falling for another trick to get me to read some horribly written YA book (Twilight comes to mind, although I knew it sucked before it became popular with swooning 12-year-olds).

Let's just say I re-thought all of my doubts once I hit chapter eight. Everything started piecing itself together and I finally understood several blanks hitherto ... which meant they were no longer blanks.

Everything began to revert back to the supernatural and that made me happy. That's about the point when I wouldn't, or maybe couldn't, put the book down.

I figured out that I had been spending all of my energy trying to figure out Lucas when I should have spent some energy figuring out Bianca. That was the real spin that got me. It has been a very long time since a book has actually out-smarted me. I was highly impressed when I was thrown for a loop. I had already known that Bianca's parents were vampires, simply by her stating that they would sleep until noon if allowed. The thing that got me was that the students acted like regular jealous teenagers. That was until their bucket of secrets started spilling over. That was my favorite part, btw. The romance can get completely taken out of this book and I would be super happy just to learn about each student and their past.

The bad thing about Lucas' character was that I wanted to hit him in the face a few times. He never really earned my affection and I ended up falling for Balthazar instead. But then again, I'm not one for the mixing of species ... especially vampire and hunter (which is very much an issue in my Beautiful Disruption book 2). I have never thought it appropriate and always created more problems than it fixed, but then again love conquers all, right? ... Or does it?

Well, there you have it, my sketchy ramblings of Claudia Gray's Evernight.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the spins and subplots and definitely enjoyed the book. I'm told Balthazar plays a larger role in Stargazer so I'll definitely be looking forward to that.

And no, I'm definitely never going to be doing reviews as a day job ... :)