
Reviews

Vaaampires!!!!!!! Yes, yes, yes, I am excited about vampires. And, yes, I’m even more excited because this was a GOOD vampire book (after disappointments such as Twilight, HON and Sookie Stackhouse) plus, it’s a series!!!!! Okay, now I don’t know why, but paranormal romance books have all trained us to expect that there’s something magical or something about the GUY. Almost always the GUY. So, you can see why chapter seven kind of surprised me. Oh, and Lucas. I gotta tell you, towards the end, when we found out about his smarmy secret, I literally shouted, “Did I call that or WHAT?” Cuz I so called that. Yeah. Bianca does seem a little immature compared to the people around her, but they’re all like 100+ years old, so that’s understandable. VAAAMPIRES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TEAM BALTHAZAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 (view spoiler)[ because when faced with a choice between a vampire and a vampire hunter, I almost always choose the vampire, merely because he is a (hide spoiler)] VAAAMPIRE!!!!!!!!!! Is it obvious that I like vampires? Gotta go read the next book.

Evernight by Claudia Gray has once again reaffirmed my realization that I am not a fan of vampire romances. It opens as a fairly typical Gothic boarding school horror, with a new girl moving to the school and being a complete fish out of water. The students are richer and are aggressively cliquish. As this is also a romance, there's of course, the mysterious, potentially dangerous, bad-boy. In a chance meeting before the school year starts, the girl (Bianca) and the boy (Lucas) meet and seem to have a connection. Except later, Lucas is cold to her and later is possessive of her — basically a soon to be abusive boyfriend. Their dysfunctional relationship is played against the background of long, boring descriptions of Bianca's class schedule. I know, she's a teenager and she's at a boarding school — there's just not that much to talk about. That doesn't mean though, that I want to read 100 pages of her going to class. I just don't. But what really did me in on this book — and the series as a whole — was Biaca's status as an unreliable narrator. As everything is told in first person, the fact that she neglects to tell some key facts about herself until she can no longer control her urges was just too much. As soon as she finally drops that key piece of information, the whole conceit of the book falls apart. She does belong at the school and it's Lucas who doesn't. The main problem, though, is that the school doesn't make sense. Sure, many of these students have been in teenage bodies for decades, if not centuries, but why oh why do they willingly subject themselves to boarding school?

** spoiler alert ** I knew the main character was going to become a vampire from the start. There is no doubt about it; it follows the conventions of the genre, for example. I thought she would discover it, not that she already knew. The main character seemed to overlook the minor detail of being a vampire during the story. Of course, it was Miss Gray’s way of revealing it in the middle of the story. This could have been an interesting book about a girl who knows she’s a vampire, one of only a few children born of vampires. Instead, the author attempted to trick us by hiding this from us at the beginning. It made little sense to me beyond that point. As much as I tried, my anger prevented me from reading further. Though Evernight wasn't as flawed as other YA books, it still promotes foolish teenage love as real love. I don’t think the concept is original. The book is a Twilight version of Vampire Knight, except written by someone who actually researched and developed her characters. I didn’t even finish it because I had better things to do... The book was boring and unreal, even though it was a fantasy. Wish it would be more enjoyable for other people...

Bianca Olivier is a new student to Evernight Academy, a Gothic boarding school with "perfect" but predatory students. She knows she does not belong but she cannot escape because her parents are now teachers at the school. Bianca believes the best of her parents and trusts them about everything even when her brain tells her not to. As school progresses, Bianca befriends Lucas, Raquel, a loner like her, and Vic, Lucas's roommate. She develops enemies, like Courtney and Erich, who are what Bianca calls "The Evernight Type". At a party, she befriends a handsome, popular, but friendly guy, Balthazar More. Balthazar asks her to the Autumn Ball. There, she, Lucas and Balthazar get into an argument, and Balthazar leaves them alone. Outside, under the gazebo, she and Lucas kiss for the first time. Bianca gives in to temptation, bites Lucas and drinks his blood. After she realizes what she did, she screams for help. Upon hearing, Courtney comes out and says "Well, it's about time you became a vampire like the rest of us." When Lucas awakens he is unable to remember the event. Lucas and Bianca declare their love for each other. Lucas eventually discovers Bianca is a vampire, but she is a child of two vampires and he accepts this. After they have been officially dating for weeks, Bianca mentions that one of Lucas's ancestors went to Evernight, but no humans have ever been accepted to the school before, except a Black Cross member (a group of elite vampire hunters). Her parents and Balthazar realize this and attack, but Lucas holds his own against two vampires and they chase him off campus. Bianca runs off with him, and even though he has been raised to hate all vampires, he still loves Bianca. They meet up with the rest of his team, and the Black Cross think that she is a stolen baby, hiding the truth she is a vampire. Bianca's parents turn up and take her back home because they do not understand. She reluctantly goes with them. A few days later she receives a letter through Vic from Lucas telling her that he will always love her and they will meet again.

Nostalgia made me do it... And it was a bad call

This book was amazing. From the first page it held my attention and I couldn't stop reading it until the end. Now I'm going crazy, waiting get my hands on the second book. As I am a sucker for forbidden romance this book was perfect. Bianca and Lucas's relationships is so beautiful and I love how they love each other even when they should hate each other. I cannot wait to read read more about them in the second book.

CHEESY! some of the things they told each other made me want to throw up! so stupid and they fell in love too fast.

I might try this again

So I picked up this book, because I read it ages ago when I first started reading and since then it's just been sitting on my shelf and over time I've completely forgotten what it was about. What this story is about, is a girl is uprooted from her normal life and her parents move to this boarding school/academy school which is in the middle of nowhere and far from human civilisation. Bianca hates it, and packs her things and plans to run away as a way to make it clear to her parents that she hates it there. Although she doesn't get very far, because she meets Lucas who also just happens to be in the woods. After chatting to him for a few minutes they both return to the school and from there a whole lotta shit happens. I am not going to lie, I had fun while reading this, as much as it was predictable, and hella cheesy. Bianca is an idiot. The choices she made throughout the story had me like "Gurrrrl whatcha doin that for?' Realistically this book is like a 1/2 star book but the enjoyment of how predictable this book was bumped it to 3 stars.

Det første som overrasket meg med denne boka var at selv om det ikke er en hemmelighet at Evernight handler om vampyrer, så fikk ikke vi (leserne) vite det før langt uti historien. Jeg satt og tenkte “Hmm, har jeg lest feil? Tenker jeg på en annen bok om vampyrer?”, men det kom fram i lyset til slutt. Så -- ei boarding school for vampyrer. Det er faktisk ikke så teit som det høres ut! Jeg fant ut at jeg faktisk likte denne boka veldig godt og den hadde mange uventede vendinger og hendelser. Jeg fikk ikke helt sansen for Lucas (hverken i begynnelsen, midten eller slutten av boka), men han var en interessant type. Bianca var en god hovedkarakter som er lett å kjenne seg igjen i. Så Evernight var veldig god, og jeg gleder meg til å lese Stargazer (nummer to).

Am i the only one who didnt click that she was a 'vampire'? It was a great read!

Agradecida con este libro por haberme sacado del bloque lector. Hace un mes para mi hubiese sido impensable terminarme un libro en tres días teniendo en cuenta el tremendo bloque q tenia. Una historia con su punto misterioso, un toque de romance y vampiros. De verdad, háganme caso, no se lean la sinopsis, se llevarán un gran spoiler. Me gusto muchísimo, engancha un montón y me ha encantado la historia. Muy recomendado

Bianca Oliver knew it was her destiny to become a vampire since she was old enough go keep a secret. When her parents force her to move to Evernight Academy, a prestigious yet exclusive boarding school, she's very apprehensive about it. Until she meets Lucas, a big trouble maker who doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of Evernight, just like her. When secrets get spilled, it takes every ounce of courage that Bianca has to try to make things right..or as right as they can be. Story-line: this overall story line was kind of slow at times. There were times where I had force my self to finish the book so I didn't have to deal with it anymore, but then came the ending, where I couldn't put it down. This book just got so...addicting! Way to wait to the very ending to do that Gray! -sarcasm..just saying- Because it wasn't the greatest, but did hook me thorough some parts: */** (1/2 stars) Characters- Is it just me or was Courtney just unneeded? That and her bitchyness. I couldn't stand her or Mrs Bethany as a character. They both just got under my skin. **/** (2/2 stars) Cover- I know, don't judge a book by the cover, but I am here. It wasn't very pretty..it was just boring. And the font on the front was very cliche too. Along with stargazer's title font too but that's a different book review. 0/* (0/1 stars) So that makes my review ***/***** (3/5)

I really enjoyed this book. The way the author wrote the book was very interesting to me. Bianca is pretty likable and I enjoyed getting to read her story. The book takes place at Evernight Academy where Bianca has moved and her parents are teachers. She has always been really shy and new places and people aren't really her thing. She meets Lucas at the beginning of the book and has a instant connection with him!!! I liked Lucas and I am looking forward to learning more about him in the future books. Bianca and Lucas relationship bored on instalove which I'm not a huge fan of, but they are starcrossed lovers that are suppose to hate each other which I enjoyed!!! I am excited to read the next book in this series!!! I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoyed the Hex Hall series, or the Vampire Academy series!!!

Blog | Twitter | Instagram | Review can also be found here at Booked J. When I was younger, when these books were first published, I wanted to read them so badly. It had all the right calling cards for my personal preference. Boarding school? CHECK. Paranormal plotlines and creatures? Check! Indulgent, Gothic tropes and all the potential that comes with it? Check, check, check. Alas, up until last year, I never had the chance to buy or read them--until I spotted the entire series whilst thrifting. Naturally, my nostalgic self came home, relaxed and tucked myself into a corner with coffee and a warm, fuzzy blanket. I was completely reading to dive into the world of Evernight and become acquainted with the halls of Evernight Academy. It became apparent straight away that I just couldn't get into Evernight as a whole. Claudia Gray's writing is lovely and indulgent, atmospheric in all the right ways, but still I felt like the story was just slipping through me. The literary equivalent of in one ear and out the other. Maybe it was because my reading this novel was after a reread of Vampire Academy and the House of Night series, and I burned myself out on similarly written tales. Maybe I've merely grown out of the genre. Or maybe it simply wasn't my cup of tea. I'm thinking it's more the 'I've grown out of this' variety, because I could feel that tiny buzz of nostalgia for my teenage reading habits. Many times, I found myself thinking, "If only I'd read this growing up." A lot of my connectivity issues were conflicting between being uninterested and being a little annoyed with the characters. And then being annoyed with myself for not having adored Evernight. At the end of the day, Evernight was definitely a product of its YA era. Which is a hit or miss experience for me. Still, there's a chance that I'll give the second installment another go. If not because I already own all of the books, but because I'm deathly curious and want to see if it was just a mood read that I was incapable of getting into only in the moment.









Highlights

