By: Sara Holland

# 1 in the Everless series | 366 pages | Pub. 2018

Everless at a Glance

• Overall Rating: ★★★
• Heroine: She’s no Nancy Drew
• Dude: Ken cheated on Barbie right?
• Brutality: The whole heart-eating thing was never confirmed…
• Ew Factor: HPV Tea

Pairs Well With

Bloody Mary

• 1/4 c tomato juice
• 1.5 oz vodka
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 3 dashes hot pepper sauce
• Pinch of salt and dash of pepper
• 1 cup ice cubes

     Beware. Spoilers are coming…

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Jess’s Reactions

Confused, stunned, frozen. That is pretty much how I feel after reading this. The beginning was super slow and felt like it was missing something. I pushed through and was rewarded in the end.

Let’s just talk about the whole blood as currency thing for a minute. Someone blood lets, it turns into a coin and then someone else puts it in their tea to drink the years… I love the idea because it’s different, but it’s actually super gross. I mean, money is insanely dirty anyway and you are drinking blood that has passed through how many hands and fallen on the floor. Add to that the fact that you have NO IDEA whose blood you are drinking. Is there no such thing as disease in this world? “Oh my tea gave me HPV today. No biggie.” I know I took it to far, but you are welcome.

Now we can discuss Jules. She is a moron. This girl would walk around with her shoes tied together all day and have no idea why she was falling down until someone told her. Her way to “investigate” is just to randomly follow people around. No one in particular, just all of the people. She doesn’t have a personality for me to cultivate any loyalty. I think she jokes one time. I am kind of rooting for Caro right now because Jules is lackluster in this book.

“Another thought hits me with brute force: maybe I am a mystery – a secret – that needs unraveling, too.”

Saying she isn’t the sharpest knife is an understatement. Jules is a Fisher Price plastic knife they give to toddlers. If she didn’t have Liam cleaning up her messes and literally fetching books for her, she would have died at 10.

Here is Roan and Jules’ relationship: They clearly got married at 8 years old in one of those backyard, the dog plays the minister type weddings. Problem is that they took it to mean that they needed to stay in “love” with each other for 9 more years, pining for the adult version. No one is in love at 8, nor can they grow those feelings into real love if they NEVER SEE EACH OTHER. Plus, Roan is a scumbag who is cheating on Ina with everyone. Let’s not pretend that Bea and Jules are the only ones. The whole line about Jules being obsessively in love with Roan was just exhausting. It made me want to reach through and choke her.

Since I love a good death to create excitement and emotion, I did appreciate the ending. And, Holland got me with Caro. I didn’t see that coming and it was a pretty great twist for me. I am sad that she left Liam behind because I was ready for a sequel full of Liam and Jules drama. He is the only one that seems to pull any sort of emotion from her at all.

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Teagan’s Reactions

I liked this book but it book made me extremely uncomfortable from the get-go. What kind of world uses blood as a currency? You have to sell years of your life to “time collectors” who basically suck your blood and turn into blood-iron currency. People literally bleed themselves dry to survive. I would not make it a day in this world cuz I fainted just reading about it. And punishments come in the form of stealing your blood, too?! Then the rich people ingest these blood coins to gain extra years? This is basically institutional vampirism and while I liked Twilight, I’m just a big NOPE on this society.

I liked Jules I guess but was so annoyed by her obsession with a boy she hadn’t seen in a decade. And that she’s completely oblivious to the fact that he’s Everless’ resident Hugh Hefner playboy. At one point she can’t figure out why he smells like different perfumes. Excuse me while I slam my head into the wall repeatedly over her stupidity. And that he’s hitting on her while he’s engaged to a princess? How are these not red flags?!?!

But what really has me in a rage is yet another book where 75% of the problems could’ve been solved had the characters actually communicated. Instead of being honest with his daughter about her past, powers and the fact that she’s this magical reincarnated Alchemist, Jules’ dad makes the “logical” choice to keep her in the dark about everything and just speak in vague riddles that would make even Dumbledore proud and that no one could ever solve. I feel bad that he died but honestly I am so over parents pulling this crap. And Liam you too need to learn how to communicate instead of just being an evil little rat and expecting Jules to decipher your actions and protect herself. If we find out this little fucker “loves” Jules I am going to throw the sequel out my window.

Finally, why do the parents always have to die in YA books? Basically having kids in YA fantasy novels is a death sentence apparently.

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