Review: Abandon by Meg Cabot

Abandon by Meg Cabot 
Published: April 26th, 2011
Publisher: Point
Pages: 304
Challenge: 100+ Reading Challenge 
Other: First book in the Abandon Trilogy. The second book, Underworld, will be published in May 2012.
Video review: YouTube
Buy the book: Bookdepository


Though she tries returning to the life she knew before the accident, Pierce can't help but feel at once a part of this world, and apart from it. Yet she's never alone . . . because someone is always watching her. Escape from the realm of the dead is impossible when someone there wants you back.

But now she's moved to a new town. Maybe at her new school, she can start fresh. Maybe she can stop feeling so afraid.

Only she can't. Because even here, he finds her. That's how desperately he wants her back. She knows he's no guardian angel, and his dark world isn't exactly heaven, yet she can't stay away... especially since he always appears when she least expects it, but exactly when she needs him most.

But if she lets herself fall any further, she may just find herself back in the one place she most fears: the Underworld.

After reading the synopsis of this book, I was incredibly excited. The myth of Persephone! I started reading this one with very high expectations, and perhaps that is why I wasn't as excited when I finished.

We are in Piece's head during the story and we follow her when she goes to her new school, as well as through the flashbacks that show us how she became who she is now. She escaped Death by escaping the Underworld and now someone wants her back there. Pierce is a nice character. She feels real, and I liked following her around. She was stubborn when she had to be, but she could also be very naive at points. The reason that she died was that she tried to rescue a bird from the swimming pool and she would probably do it again if she saw it happening once more.

My problem with this book was that we would often land in some kind of memory, a flashback of what happened before, while we were in the middle of a conversation or when something was happening. For me, it was thoroughly confusing at times because I missed the whole transfer to a second location when we were in the middle of such a scene. These memories were often quite important to the story, so I understand that they had to be included in the book, but I would have appreciated a different placement of those scenes to help the story form instead of slowing it down. There was one particular scene that had me confused, and it was after the gym assembly. I honestly thought that we were still there, when I was suddenly told that we were now in the counsellor's office. It bothered me while reading, and took away a lot of enjoyment from the story.

Having said that, I liked Cabot's twist on the myth of Persephone. I liked what she did with the characters and I was particularly fond of John. Even though he's a difficult character, I think it goes well with his, ahem, job description and I appreciated his actions because of that. He had some Edward-esque tendencies, but nothing that put me off too much. I read the entire book in one day, so that tells you a lot about the readability of this book. The only thing that bothered me was, like I said before, the in my eyes weird placement of the memories and flashbacks. Other than that, I thought it was an enjoyable story and I will be picking up Underworld when it comes out.

My overall rating:


Three out of five stars for Pierce and John. I'll be looking forward to visiting you in Underworld!