Abandon

Abandon

by Meg Cabot

She met him when she was seven.  She had just seen her grandfather buried and then watched a bird die in front of her eyes.  He came out of nowhere and brought the bird back to life, but couldn't save her grandfather.  

He amazed her.

At fifteen, she drowned in her own pool trying to save a bird.  He found her in the Underworld and she made her way out and back to life.

Now, at seventeen, after almost two years of problems stemming from coming back from the dead, Pierce has moved to her mother's ancestral town and begun a new life with the same old questions and the same old problems.

Because he hasn't let her go.  He always seems to be there when she needs him most, even if she'd prefer that he leave her alone.

But when she finally seems to get rid of him, she may need him more than ever.

Final thoughts:  I'm so conflicted about this one.  I LOVE Cabot's work, in general, but this was just not up to her normal standards.  The writing was stilted, often with quotes being broken up in strange ways.  "'I hope you're not planning on kicking me,' he said, not even bothering to look up from his book, 'as hard as you did those doors.'" (299)  She also had a tendency to repeatedly say things like "If I had known then about this, then I would have..." or "If they knew what I knew...", often at the end of the chapter.  It was like having mini-cliffhangers that wouldn't be resolved for entire chapters.  The chronology was frustrating with flashbacks showing up out of nowhere and then disappearing.  Pierce wasn't very sympathetic as a character; she was actually whiny and often blamed others for her problems.  Most of the rest of the characters were very one-dimensional and were obviously only there to further specific plot points.  The only person I really liked was John because he seemed the most realistic, even though he had the least believable storyline.  All in all, this was disappointing.  It's also yet another trilogy AND the end just lies there like a hangnail; it's a painful finish that never seems to resolve.  I'll probably read the next book when it comes out, but I'm not going to run right out and get it immediately upon release.

Rating: 3/5