Honestly, guys, I spent most of today completely convinced I’d already finished Evermore.  Sad when your book so unremarkable that someone can forget that it’s not technically over yet.

Ever breaks down in a cryfest over how the accident was all her fault again, and we finally get a reason for why she thinks that.  They were on a road trip, and she begged her dad to turn around and go home for something she forgot.  He did, and then they ran into a deer/had the accident.

Now, I’m somewhat torn.  Guilt is a fickle emotion, and it is pretty normal after a trauma to start constantly dissecting the incident and pick out every tiny random thing that could have happened differently to prevent it.  So the fact that Ever has decided to latch on to this one thing and call all her fault actually doesn’t bug me.  It’s not her fault, but it’s a normal human reaction to do that.

But why the fuck are we getting this bit of information as if it’s some big reveal?  The treatment and placement of this reads the same as if we were finding out some horrible dark secret, when really, this isn’t worth it.  We already knew that Ever had some serious self-blame issues, and now…we still know that Ever has some serious self-blame issues.  So the bit about turning around is just a detail, not something worthy of all this narrative sleight-of-hand.  In a better book, maybe we could have spent the novel thinking she really did cause the accident, so this would be a reveal that she didn’t, and that would be fine.  But not like this.

I wanted to believe Riley [saying that it wasn’t her fault], to retrain my brain to this new way of thinking. But knowing the truth pretty much guaranteed I never would.

Riley was FUCKING RIGHT THERE!  She heard you argue with your dad about turning around, she knows everything that happened.  If Riley knows ‘the truth’ as well and still says it’s not your fault, then what the fuck is this shit?

Well, instead of going to the therapist that she so clearly, desperately needs, Ever starts thinking about Damen again.  The Valentine he sent her has magically turned into a tulip, so she looks up flower meanings online.  You know, like we did in chapter fucking fourteen!  Congratulations on finally catching up to the game, Ever.

Ever decides that even though Damen is a jerk, she’s still in love with him.  No, really.

And while I certainly don’t condone what he did, I have to admit that it worked.

You know, while you can’t ever claim that someone deserves relationship abuse…there’s still validity to “you can’t help people who don’t want to be helped.”

I shut my eyes and imagine the feel of Damen’s warm wonderful body curled around mine, the whisper of his soft sweet lips on my ear, my neck, my cheek, the way his mouth feels when it parts against mine, I hold onto that image, the feel of our perfect love

That’s not love.  That’s nice, to be sure.  A lot of people will tell you that they want their relationships to include good physical chemistry, and that’s fine.  But she’s literally defining all of her relationship by recalling their makeout sessions.

GOOD GOD, BOOK, YOU ARE MARKETED AT TEENAGERS, JUST LOOK AT YOURSELF WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

She says ‘I love you’ to an empty room, because Damen said he would be magic-stalking her and come back any time she said that.  But he doesn’t.

Drina shows up instead!  Oh, joy, this lady again.  Can you at least try and be more entertaining this time?

“Ah, yes, I can still see inside your head. Your little psychic shield? Thinner than the Shroud of Turin

…is that something people usually think of when looking for thin comparisons?  I mean, I would think of it more as brittle and old, not especially thin.

She groans, a low evil sound that vibrates the room. “My God, what does he see in you?” Her eyes rake over me, filled with disdain. “Certainly not your intellect or wit, since we’ve yet to see any evidence it exists. And your idea of a love scene? So Disney; so Family Channel, so dreadfully boring. Really; Ever, may I remind you that Damen’s been around for hundreds of years, including the free-love sixties?”

Okay, seriously, is Drina someone from the audience that just managed to get written in?

Well, she goes on and on for a while on various ranting tangents that serve no purpose except to highlight the fact that she’s a bad guy.  Really, she’s had maybe two lines before she showed up as a villain, so all of this is completely pointless and out of context.  She could be ranting about cheese whiz for all I care.  She has no plot line and no character arc, so there’s nothing from the book for her rants to connect to.  She could be a clown insisting that Ever is an evil hellspawn out to tempt Damen to the darkside and this wouldn’t be any less random.

But god damn, this book is trying to make me care, considering how long it has her talk. 

Oh, and Drina caused the accident that killed her family.  Well that’s incredibly cheap.  Instead of Ever having to come to terms with death and her own self-worth issues, the closest thing this book had to a real problem is getting handwaved away by saying that the evil villainess did it?  There was little enough sympathy for that plot line, and even that just got sucked out.

Drina finally stops talking and they fight for a while.  Ever thinks her happy thoughts again and gains super powers so she can fight on par with Drina.  Just when I think that maybe, for all its faults, this book will actually let the girl defeat the big bad in a brawl…Damen shows up.  And all he does is say ‘stop it’ to Drina.

“I know,” he says, squeezing my fingers as she shrivels and ages then fades from our sight, a black silk dress and designer shoes the only evidence she ever existed.

Drina literally shrivels up and dies just because Damen rejected her.

Worst. Villain. Ever.

Damen gives some bullshit new-age explaination about how Ever hit Drina in a ‘chakra’ or something during their fight, and that’s what killed her, but…god, book, what are you even doing?  Did you just pull concepts out of a hat?  Ghosts, auras, mind-reading, Summerland (which is quite fairyish), alchemy, and now chakras?  You’re not even trying to tie all this together, you’re just flinging stuff at us.

Ever spontaneously has a moment of doubt thinking that Damen is 600 years old and would get bored with her.

I mean, it’s classic love story fodder, the one who got away, again and again and again! No wonder you’ve remained so entranced! It had nothing to do with me! You’ve spent six hundred years trying to get in my pants!”

Hey, look at you!  Having a moment of smart!  You get a gold star, Ever!

Of course, this all gets forgotten as soon as Damen says “nuh-uh,” so I’m forced to take that gold star away.

“But I’ve already said it, that’s why you came back, right? I thought you would’ve come sooner. I mean it would’ve been nice to have had some help.”

“I heard you. And I would’ve come even sooner, but I needed to know you were truly ready, and not just lonely after saying good-bye to Riley.”

Yes, I needed to know you really loved me, because otherwise I wouldn’t have saved you from being brutally murdered by my ex.  Because…knowing your in love with me is the only thing that matters, and if you’re not going to be in a relationship with me then I don’t care if you die or not? 

A love for the ages, people.

“Will you show me how to cloak [my thoughts]?”

He smiles. “In time I’ll teach you everything, I promise.

In time.  But first I want to read your thoughts and manipulate you some more.

God, he just gets creepier on every page, doesn’t he?

Ever doesn’t care, she decides to be immortal and hang out with her incredibly manipulative boyfriend forever and ever.

She’s not Too Stupid to Live, she’s Too Stupid to Die.

Well, at least that’s a new one, I guess.

Ugh, I’m just happy to be done with this mess.  For real this time, too.