Nevermore by Kelly Creagh
Nevermore is easy to overlook because of its tacky hawt goth boy cover, but this YA book ranks 8 on the List of Books That Goodreads Wishes You Read.
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In a genre populated by brooding males, ditzy girls masquerading as independent women, and lots (and lots) of vampires, it’s really easy to pass over a book like Kelly Creagh’s Nevermore, especially when the cover features a blond girl wrapped around a dark-haired man and spirally purple text. The painfully cliché plot doesn’t help: Hot cheerleader that, like, oh my god, gets paired with this freaky brooding goth guy for an English paper on the night of the big game? Totes unfair! But it turns out he’s not all that he seems! Who would have guessed? You can make a safe bet that this YA novel is going to carry a strong motif about the error of judging people by their appearance.
It’s a lesson we can all learn from; judging a book by its appearance can also be an error. Don’t make the mistake of walking away from this book.
With an average 3.94/5 rating by 14,602 people and ranked #8 out of 7346 books on Goodreads.com’s Books you Wish more People Knew About list, Nevermore by Kelly Creagh has slapped the faces of more than a few readers who judged this book by its cover since it was published in late 2010.
Nevermore follows cheerleader Isobel Lanley’s unlikely partnership with goth-boy Varen Nethers as they struggle against a jealous ex-boyfriend, disgruntled family members, and supernatural forces to complete an English assignment due on Halloween. Isobel’s voice is a refreshingly honest narration from a character that doesn’t repackage herself as the novel progresses. Isobel grows and changes, but stays true to herself as she fights to keep doing the things she likes.
Of course, the things she likes predictably shift to include Varen, but if Isobel wants to keep him in her life, she has a lot more than an English assignment to worry about. Varen is slowly being consumed by a dream world he’s scrawled into his notebook – a dream world where the stories of Edgar Allan Poe come to life – and is going to disappear into this world completely on Halloween night. To save Varen’s life (and pass her English assignment), Isobel needs to piece together her strange dreams, ignore the warnings of a mysterious man who vanishes into thin air, and fight off dangerous creatures that would be more than happy to see her dead.
Nevermore is a surprising take on a familiar storyline about conquering inner demons and discovering strength in unexpected places. Readers looking for a strictly paranormal story might be disappointed as Nevermore follows a high-school drama with just a dash of supernatural tossed in at the end for flavor, but fans of young adult literature like Brenna Yovanoff’s The Replacement, Becca Fitzpatrick’s Hush, Hush, and Kendare Blake’s Anna Dressed in Blood will regret passing up on this book.