Review: Nevermore Series by Kelly Creagh

I decided to undertake reading the Nevermore series back-to-back, and the following review is based on my general thoughts on the series overall, as well as some more specific thoughts on the final book, which releases later this month. I tried to refrain from spoilers as much as possible, in case there are other brave souls out there who've also waited five years to start this series.


Title: Oblivion
Author: Kelly Creagh
Series: Nevermore, book #3
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: July 28, 2015
Source: received from publisher via Edelweiss
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

This electrifying conclusion to the Nevermore trilogy takes one last trip to the dream world of Edgar Allan Poe to reveal the intertwined fates of Isobel and Varen.

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? —Edgar Allan Poe

The fine line between life and death blurred long ago for Isobel Lanley. After a deadly confrontation with Varen in the dreamworld, she’s terrified to return to that desolate and dangerous place. But when her nightmares resume, bleeding into reality, she is left with no choice. Varen’s darkness is catching up to her. To everything. Threatening to devour it all.

Isobel fears for her world. For her sanity and Varen’s—especially after a fresh and devastating loss. To make matters worse, the ghostly demon Lilith wants Varen for her own, and she will do anything to keep him in her grasp—anything.

Can Isobel ever find her happy ending? Worlds collide and fates are sealed in this breathtaking finale to the Nevermore trilogy.

I've had copies of Nevermore and Enshadowed on my shelf for awhile, but I was waiting until I could read the entire series back-to-back before I started them. And now that I've read them, I'm glad I waited so long. I don't know how I'd ever have survived not reading these books back-to-back. Talk about cliffhangers from Hell. Two years between the first two books and three years between books two and three. I'm just not down for that kind of torture...

So, I was pleased as punch to get a review copy of Oblivion, the book fans of the series have been waiting ages for. I didn't immediately dive in, though, because the sheer size of Nevermore is daunting and I knew I needed to set a good chunk of time aside for these books. Nevermore is 543 pages long, Enshadowed comes in at the smallest in the series with 429 pages, and Oblivion rounds things out at 448 pages. But of all the books, Oblivion felt the longest.

It took me a lot longer to read Oblivion than I expected it to, especially considering how quickly I tore through the first two books in the Nevermore series. I did stop in the middle to read Illuminae -- and I binged The 100 on Netflix for a couple of weeks -- and after that, I found it hard to get back into Oblivion because it is set at a much slower pace than either of those stories. Agonizingly slow at times, in fact, but atmospheric all the same.

The series starts out in our world, full of the promise of forbidden love and bucking societal expectations. But then it takes a very dark turn into a dream world ruled by the demon Lilith. I found myself nearly unable to put the first two books down. Sneaking it in at work. Diving back in as soon as I got home. The story even started invading my dreams, to the point that I'd wake up with the thought, "Lilith, is that you?" And then I'd instantly be terrified that I'd invoked the demon without meaning to, and well, if you've read the books, you know that's not a good thing.

From the beginning, I was more drawn to Varen's character than I ever was to Isobel's. His character was dark and enigmatic and begging to be explored. Isobel's character growth was rather stilted at first and I felt it hard to connect with the insipid cheerleader. But after facing her own prejudices and finding herself no longer a part of the flock, I found her character worthy of my time. She wasn't just a cheerleader any longer but a slightly Varen-obsessed dream walker.

And in a role reversal I didn't see coming, I started to find Varen's character less interesting. After the first book, his character really went downhill for me, which was probably due in part to the lack of his presence as the series wore on. It mostly became a story of Isobel running to and fro in search of Varen or some way to save him, all the while dragging her new bestie Gwen along for the ride and hoping for some guidance from the inscrutable Reynolds.

The story was a bit more drawn out in those last two books, and if not for the side characters and interactions, I might have given up hope of finishing this series altogether. But the exploration of Varen's psyche via dreams and the Nocs -- fractured parts of Varen's soul -- was enough to keep me glued to the pages when nothing else was going on. The Nocs were fascinating characters, especially as they related to those they'd splintered from, often as the worst versions of themselves. I rather adored Pinfeathers, even before I was supposed to like him, and I even found Scrimshaw only mildly detestable. The supporting cast of characters was definitely one of the aspects I liked best and quite possibly the series' saving grace.

The writing is captivating, and as I mentioned before, very atmospheric. Which means there are also pages and pages of details, about the dreamworld, about the exact shade of green of Varen's eyes, even about Isobel's cheer routines. The author left nothing out. But sometimes, reading these books got a little tedious because of all the detail and explanation. And especially as Isobel extrapolated ad nauseam on Varen's reasons or on Reynold's loyalty or on Lilith's plans for them all. However, I did appreciate the link to Edgar Allen Poe in the story and all of the research that had to have gone into writing a story like this, with Poe's legacy as the backdrop.

In the end, though, I think this series would have been better served as a duology, rather than a trilogy. Books two and three contained so much filler, and had some of that been eliminated, the story could have been action-driven as well as character-driven. As it was, the characters carried the story when nothing else was happening, and that worked, but not nearly as well it could have, had there been more happening at any given time...but most especially in the third and final installment. It was a rather lackluster finale for me, but overall, I still really enjoyed my time with this series and these characters, and though not the ending I expected, it was still fitting.

GIF it to me straight:

Yep, these books were a little like those weird dreams that make no sense, that don't follow a timeline or any rules at all, really.

Four stars for the series overall, but if I had to break it down by book, it would look like this:

Nevermore - 4 stars
Enshadowed - 4 stars
Oblivion - 3 stars

About the author:

As a child, Kelly would hold elaborate one-kid plays for patient relatives, complete with song, dance, and over-the-top melodramatics. Then, whenever Mom or Grandma called for a break, she would venture outside to slay dragons, run from make-believe ghosts and create magical feasts for fairies out of mud and pinecones.

In the third grade, Kelly wrote her first book titled Pink Lettuce, a story about a young girl who comes to the aid of her mad scientist neighbor, helping him to return his potion-pink lettuce patch to its original green and leafy luster.

Kelly holds an undergraduate degree in Theatre Arts and Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Today, she finds true joy in transcribing her dramatic daydreams onto the stage of the blank page. When not writing or curled up with a good book, Kelly can be found teaching, learning and performing the ancient art of Bellydance.

Find Kelly:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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Labels: beautiful covers, fantasy, gothic horror, kelly creagh, nevermore, paranormal, retellings, reviews, series, simon schuster

Top Ten Tuesday: Sequels We Need YESTERDAY

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the awesome ladies at The Broke and the Bookish. Apparently, they are overly fond of list-making and love to share their bookish lists with the rest of us book nerds.  =) We're game.

This week's topic is the Top Ten Sequels I Can't Wait To Get.

April's Picks:

I'm so behind on series books, that I don't have too many that I'm dying to get to. These three though, I cannot freaking wait for. Most of all, Golden Son. When that comes out, I will be starting it asap.

These last seven are sequels that I STILL HAVEN'T gotten to. FOR SHAME!!!! Maybe I need to move them up my list. Being in the reading slump I am, reading a sequel to a book I loved might be just the thing I need. :)



Jen's Picks:

I already have a few of these sitting on my shelf, just waiting for me to make time for them...

And then I couldn't help but include a few threequels I'm eagerly anticipating...

There are plenty more sequels and threequels and later installments I'm looking forward to, but I tried to only include those that already had a cover. :)


Which sequels are you dying to get your hands on? :)  Be sure to share a link to your TTT post so we can visit!

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Labels: sequels, series, top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Series We Want to Start

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the awesome ladies at The Broke and the Bookish. Apparently, they are overly fond of list-making and love to share their bookish lists with the rest of us book nerds.  =) We're game.

This week's topic is the Top New Series I Want To Start (new..let's say within the last year or two).

April's Picks:

When I saw the subject of this TTT, I got with Jen and told her that there aren't really any new series books coming out right now that I'm dying to read, because I have so many old series books I own and haven't been able to get to. So I'm mixing it up a bit and sharing the series books I so badly wanted to get to, but never started and now they are all out already. I suck. lol.

Jen's Picks:

Since I pretty much read what I want, when I want, I've started all of the new series I want to, with the exception of those coming in 2015. So, I decided to take it back more than a year or two, though some of these have books with installments that have released recently, so maybe they count? Idk...and I don't care...I do what I want. :P

I've heard great things about The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner and I'm kind of dying to see what all the fuss is about. I'm a huge fan of Melina Marchetta's contemporary books, so adding her Lumatere Chronicles to my series TBR list is a given. The Seven Realms series by Cinda Williams Chima also comes highly recommended and I obviously need more fantasy in my life. And, of course, I've been hiding under a rock for years apparently because I've never read the Abhorsen series by Garth Nix. But thanks to Sarah J. Maas's obsessive fangirling over Sabriel and being on a panel with the author at Texas Teen Book Festival, I am now destined for this series' greatness. And I now own a signed copy! Woot! :D

And then there are some series that will be kicking off very soon that I just can't wait to start:

I have one of these for review already and a sample of another, but you can be sure that regardless of how I obtain these books, these series will all be started in 2015. =)

Which newish or upcoming series are you hoping to start soon? :D Be sure to share a link to your TTT post so we can visit!

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Labels: series, TBR pile, top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Best/Worst Series Enders

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the awesome ladies at The Broke and the Bookish.  Apparently, they are overly fond of list-making and love to share their bookish lists with the rest of us book nerds.  =)  I'm game.

This week's list features our Top Ten Best/Worst Series Enders.

I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret:  I hate it when one of my favorite series ends.  (Okay, that's probably not really a secret.)  Some of my favorite endings are those open-ended ones where the reader is left to make the final judgment: on who the main character ends up with, where they end up, etc.  But those are also some of my least favorite endings.

Another secret:  I tend to leave the last book in a series unread for ages, unless I'm sure -- and I mean 99% positive -- I'm going to love it.  So, I didn't have a lot to draw on with this list, because there are several (read:  20 or more) series sitting unfinished on my shelves, though all books have been released.  And there are several more finishing up in the next six months or so that I think would be added to this list, but seeing as how I don't have the ability to travel into the future (yet), I had to pull from what I had:

Best...


Clockwork Princess - I love that Tessa got not one but two happily ever afters!  Not realistic at all but still one of my favorites.

Forever - I love that even though we don't know whether everything works out, we're left with hope.  And we get Cole and Isabel's story now!  :D

Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows, Shine, With All My Soul & The Bitter Kingdom - All. The. Feels. I love that we know exactly what happens at the end of these stories and they went exactly as I'd hoped.

The Sweet Far Thing, Mockingjay, Unbreakable & Girl of Nightmares - People die.  People I didn't even know I cared about die.  Tragic endings all around, but those are some of my favorites.  Also, props to the last two on this list for recognizing that some stories can be told in as little as two books.


Worst:



Some of these are on this worst list, not because they were terrible, but just because they either shouldn't have been the end (Dead Silence) or the series should have ended with the third book like it was supposed to (The Iron Knight) or because she chose wrong (Boundless and possibly Requiem & Spell Bound). Mostly, I was just disappointed in one fashion or another, and I hate being disappointed when it comes to the final book.  The others...I don't know how I made it through the whole series, let alone that disaster and/or snooze-fest of a final book.  What was I thinking?

#10 on the worst list:  One of my biggest bookish pet peeves is when an author says that such and such book will be the last one in the series, and then right around the time that final book is releasing, they decide to write more of that world, whether it be the same characters or a spin-off.  That's just so gimmicky to me.  At first, I'm usually elated at the prospect, but that morphs into annoyance fairly quickly.  Do it or don't do it, but don't say that you're not going to and then do it.  Sorry for ranting...but there were several more I would have added to the worst list just for the sheer fact that they weren't supposed to exist...but I haven't read them yet, so I can't honestly add them.  *sigh*

What are some of your favorite/least favorite series endings?  Any you're looking forward to in the next few months?

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Labels: endings, series, top ten tuesday

The Sunday Symposium: Serious About Series

The Sunday Symposium is a weekly feature in which I'll be discussing various bookish topics and asking for your commentary, as well.  This week, let's discuss series:  why some series are easier to finish than others, why it's sometimes better to wait until all the books in a series are released, what series you could read over and over, etc.

I used to be really good about finishing series.  Okay, maybe good isn't the right word for it.  I was obsessive about it.  The same way I was about finishing every book I began reading.  I've started DNFing books that weren't particularly holding my interest, and in a way, that's carried over to the series I've started in the last few years, as well.

That isn't to say that I've lost interest in every series I haven't finished yet.  There are a lot of series ending this year.  Some I finished the minute the books were released (The Clockwork Princess)...or earlier if I had a review copy of the final book (Requiem).  But therein lies the problem.  My review books are taking priority these days, so if I haven't specifically fit a book -- whether it be a finale or not -- into my reading schedule, it likely won't get read for awhile.  Unless I download the audiobook.  I've been doing that for a lot of books (finales included) that I just don't have time for.

But I've really got to stop doing that, especially when I already own the book.  Because more often than not, there's a reason I've been putting off that final book, and I don't just mean time constraints.  Look at Lauren Kate's Rapture.  I knew that series was...less-than-stellar.  But I own signed copies of all four books.  It took me forever for my curiosity to get the best of me, and even so, I didn't break down and read the book on my shelf.  No, I downloaded the audio from Audible without checking who the narrator was.  Big mistake.  The book wasn't good on its own, but add a terrible narrator into the mix, and it was doomed to fail.  It took me four attempts to get all the way through it.  (I've since barred myself from any audio featuring this narrator.)  And after all that, I couldn't even bring myself to review it.  Not even to rant about it.  That's saying a lot.  And so you might understand why I'm hesitant to read the finale for that other angel series.  There are a million good reasons not to finish that particular series, and yet, I know my curiosity will get the better of me and I'll give in to temptation, no matter how wrong it is.  If it weren't for Angelfall, I think I'd give up on [fallen] angel books completely.

But it's not just angel-themed series that I haven't finished yet.  Sometimes, I start a book without realizing it's the first in a series.  (I'm looking at you, I am Number Four.)  Sometimes I start a series just to pass the time until something better comes along.  (It's me, not you, The Maze Runner.)  Don't judge...you know you've done this, too.  ;0)

On the other hand, there are series that I will devour the minute I get my hands on each book.  I couldn't wait a minute longer to read The Bitter Kingdom, for instance.  Now that was an epic finale.  Well worth the wait, I might add.  Though, it would have caused me less heartache to have waited until that entire series had been released before diving in.  I mean, I read the first book only a couple of months before the second was released.  Another year wouldn't have been asking too much, but I'm weak.  So very weak.

The one series, though, that I could read again and again is Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.  Not only are those some great fantasy books, but they bring back good memories.  First, unlike so many YA enthusiasts these days, I cannot boast that the Twilight series was the one that got me back to my reading roots.  Nope.  For me, that all started with The Golden Compass.  I started it when I was pregnant with my daughter, and I ended up giving that copy to my older sister and buying the omnibus that contained all three books.  I remember going to one of my "treatments" at the end -- there were complications -- and having to lie there for an hour at a time, and one of the nurses remarked that "that's an awfully big book".  Um, yeah.

I have a love/hate relationship with series these days.  I love finding great new series, but I also hate the waiting in between books and the feeling of obligation to finish each one I start.  That's another thing I'm working on.  And I might be giving away a couple of the completed series mentioned in this post, even though I haven't finished them myself.  If I get that curious, I can always download the audio, right?  ;-)

Here are some of the series on my shelves right now...

Completely finished and completely unread...don't ask:

• The Trylle Trilogy by Amanda Hocking
• The Firelight Trilogy by Sophie Jordan
• The Looking Glass Wars Trilogy by Frank Beddor
• Modern Faerie Tales by Holly Black
• Prophecy of the Sisters Trilogy by Michelle Zink
• The Incarceron Duology by Catherin Fisher

Finished series that I'm behind on (read: waivering on completing):

• Across the Universe Trilogy by Beth Revis, read books #1 and #2
• Gone with the Respiration by Lia Habel, read book #1...not sure if there's more than two
• The Chemical Garden Trilogy by Lauren DeStefano, read books #1 and #2
• The Goddess Test series by Aimee Carter, read books #1 and #2
• The Revenants series by Amy Plum, read books #1 and #2
• Shades of London series by Maureen Johnson, read book #1
• Hereafter series by Tara Hudson, read book #1
• Personal Demons Trilogy by Lisa Desrochers, read books #1 and #2

There are more to add to both of those lists, and I wanted to list all the series that I plan on completing this year, but it's getting late, I meant to have this post up this morning, and I'm still recovering from a cold or whatever my daughter passed to me, so this will have to be enough for now.  :-P  Plus, you probably don't need to know how neurotic I can be.  I am such a list-maker.  =)

So, how do you feel about series?  Any that you just can't make yourself finish?  How about those that you wish you would have waited to read?  And best of all, which series could you re-read, no matter how many times you've read it before?

Any and all commentary, chastising, and public flogging is welcome, as per usual.  And thanks for stopping by!  Also, be sure to check out Let's Discuss to find more bookish discussions all over the interwebz!

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Labels: series, the sunday symposium