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Book Review: Evernight, by Claudia Gray

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Book Review: Evernight, book 1of Evernight series, by Claudia Gray

Book Description from amazon.com:

Bianca wants to escape.
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.


Evernight, book one of Claudia Gray's supernatural YA romance series, provides worthy entertainment to its readers. I enjoyed the book but I also can't overlook its flaws.

First I want to address how utterly overused the plot and setting are. I will write a simple  'Oh I have seen these settings before!' check list:

(1) Gothic, gloomy private school. Check.

(2) A heroine who was shy, socially awkward and had zero self-confident. Check.

(3) Two hot boys who wanted the heroine's affection. Check.

(4) One mean-spirited Queen Bee in school. Check.

(5) One nice, popular guy who is liked by everyone. Check...okay, can we stop having popular guy who's liked by everyone in YA books!?

(6) Dramas at Prom Night. Check. Okay, can we just stop having dramas at prom nights?

(7) New girl in a new school setting. OH! It seems like there can't be a YA book without this 'new student in a new school' setting!  

Okay, I know wise authors can create extraordinary books with the most overused settings, still Miss Gray's creation has left many things to be desired.

Our 'heroine', Bianca is a lame, immature character, at the beginning she ran away from her parents in a halfhearted attempt to protest against being forced to go to Evernight Academy. Her attempt to flee doesn't even last longer than a few hours. I admit it's one of the most immature actions I've ever seen from a YA character. Come on! Is she a five years old kid or something!?

Bianca also fell in love with Lucas after meeting him and chatting with him for just once, and then she is obsessed about him, moaning and mooning over him when Lucas didn't talk to her. My reaction to that is "Okay, girl. He isn't talking to you, Get .Over. It! Get .A. Life!" I mean, the whole drama with Lucas makes Bianca look like a five years old instead of a teenager.

I know. I'm 10 years older than the targeted audience of this book, still I'm damn sure a lot of teenage girls out there will also find Bianca's behaviors immature and silly.

Then we follow Bianca through a series of school dramas, meeting her new roommate and making friends among students. We are also told that there was a group of 'Evernight type' gorgeous, rich students who look down at the ordinary kids. Bianca was torn between staying on the Evernight type's good side and making friends with those ordinary kids. The stern, forbidding headmistress, Mrs. Bethany is also being introduced to us.    

It's also hinted by Bianca and one of the ordinary students that something isn't right with the school and the Evernight type students, but the secret would only be revealed latter.

I have to admit I know what this secret is even before I read Evernight (I stumbled upon book 2 of the series first so I know what's going on in book 1), so the 'surprise' isn't really as surprising to me as it should have been. And it probably maims my enjoyment of reading a little.

I think, if I read this book without knowing anything about it beforehand, I would have truly been surprised by the major plot twist because I could hardly see it coming, still after the surprise washed over, then I would have felt so utterly cheated.  

*major plot spoiler warning*

So here is the major plot twist, in the middle of the book, we are informed that many students and all of the teachers in Evernight were in fact vampires, which included Bianca herself and her parents.

Okay, that's when I'm truly unable to suppress my disbelief.

The entire book is narrated by Bianca's first person viewpoint but at the first half of the book, the word 'vampire' is never in her thoughts and she never mentioned her parents were drinking blood at dinners. How come?

I understand Miss Gray wants to give us a surprise, but it doesn't work when she used first person perspective to narrate her book! What kind of vampire/half-vampire goes through an entire day, a whole week and even months with no thoughts concerning her own true identity and her parents' vampiric behaviors ever crossing her mind? Did she have a filter in her brain to filtrate every thought about vampire? Instead I feel such plot device is stupid and I feel cheated.

And after the secret is revealed, all of a sudden the words 'vampire' and 'blood' popped up from Bianca's thoughts all the time without any break, it only confirmed my suspicion that the absence of those words in Bianca's thoughts in the first-half of the book is a pure plot device, plain and simple.

Here's a humble suggestion: if Miss Gray wants to hide the true identity of her main character, next time would she please write her book with a third person viewpoint.

Plus we also get the 'vampires going to highschool for eternity' BS.

It's reasoned that young-looking vampires can choose to go to Evernight Academy in order to learn how to deal with the modern time and pretend to be ordinary humans. I admit that it is a good idea to let vampires deal with the issue of adjusting to the modern society (Anne Rice had addressed this issue before) still I hate the idea of immortals going to freaking highschool in order to learn how to deal with the change of time. This idea sucks. Why would immortals endue living in dorm. always wearing uniform and taking orders from headmistress and teachers for eternity!?

Plus, I want to point out that I can't think of a bigger advertisement to tell vampire hunters that "VAMPIRES HERE! COME AND GET US!" than naming your vampires school "Evernight Academy".

Secondly, in the Vampire Academy series, at least the vampires who go to school are actual teenagers, adult vampires got jobs and had a life instead of staying in school forever, for crying out loud!

Eventually Lucas found out Bianca's true identity, but after spending his holiday going back to meet the other Black Cross (vampire hunters group) members and Bianca sending an email to plead her case during the holiday, Lucas just came around, accepting his girlfriend was a vamp and then proclaimed his unchanging love to Bianca after he went back to Evernight!? What the hell!? So we are supposed to believe Lucas, a vampire hunter who had been taught to hate vampires for his whole life, would suddenly realize vampires aren't all bad and evil so easily? Just for one email? Unbelievable.

*end of plot spoiler*

To sum up, I'm okay with this book but I don't think there's any special or unique about it. It keeps you reading no matter what, and it can serve well as a guilty pleasure. The parts about Lucas' true identity being revealed and the ending are pretty nice, too. If you could overlook the flaws in characters, the romance and setting, and if you were willing to overlook some eye-popping cliches and plot devices, you can enjoy the book just fine.
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Symbionia's avatar
Besides "Carrie", when has "Prom Night" has been interesting?