Abandon

Main character hates history and mythology but literally is in a shitty retelling of Hades and Persephone.

That's our opener.

I don't know, Meg Cabot has had such a grip on the world for so many years. So. It's kind of fascinating when you reread them and realize she was very unhinged. In hindsight her books are wild. They're drinking games pioneering the future and here we are. Do I think Meg formed all of the abusive male protagonist in every book series? No. But do I think she definitely had a hand in the state of young audience books nowadays and how abusive they are? Yes.

She's a pioneer of pushing abusive romantic partners in romance literature upon teenagers.

Also Death is named John. I like it in concept, but it's wasted here.

I'll show more bet you're wondering, does he learn from his actions and become better like in Beauty and the Beast? No, he doesn't feel he needs to grow. There is no character growth. He doesn't become a better person.

"I want to fix him." Meg Cabot pioneering the future.

John is a big asshole and repeatedly Pierce thinks she can fix him.

"I have a boyfriend now, the God of death." Aaaaand abduction. Cool.

2 stars.

Honestly well-written but it would be way better and rated higher if we just removed John. Like take out John and this is a solid 3-3.5 star read. I loved the parts without him. show less

Courtesy of Smash Attack Reads

Interest in the book: Greek Mythology! Persephone and Hades! I also met Meg Cabot, which only increased my need to read this series. She was very entertaining, as most writers are. She doesn't write stories I'm typically drawn too, so I was happy to learn of this series. As a fan of Greek Mythology, I've been disappointed in some of the YA attempts. I'm happy to announce that this book entertained me from start to finish. I read it in two sittings.

First Impressions: "Once, I died."
That opening line definitely grabs your attention. Pierce (LOVE this name for a chic by the way, and it's a great twist on Persephone) recalls the story of how she flat lined for an hour after drowning. You are given bits and show more pieces of her otherworldly journey throughout the story, but that first line hooked me.

Characters: Pierce Oliviera is having a bad year. Hell, a few bad years. Let's see...she died. Once revived, she was not the same Pierce. She had difficulties that resulted in her being expelled from her private school. Her mother moved them to her hometown of Isla Huesos in Florida, leaving her father behind in Connecticut. Mom blames dad for Pierce's accident, so there is definitely parental conflict. Pierce's grandmother is shrew-like, her cousin is all over her about the details of seeing "the light" and her uncle's recently been released from a long prison sentence and is quietly trying to acclimate back into society. Pierce gets a little crazy throughout the book, trying to figure out which way is which. She is a pretty strong but utterly confused. Does she love John or does she want to run away screaming? I get it. He's otherworldly and pops up every single time she gets into some kind of trouble, but really. Choose your path or move out-of-the-way and let me at 'em.

John Hayden. Um, hello sexy! John is very mysterious at first, as Pierce does not yet realize who and what he is. It may be obvious to the reader, but I enjoyed learning about him through Pierce's eyes, as well as her surprise and disbelief about him. I think John is drawn to Pierce because of her selflessness. He is constantly pointing out that she is always thinking about another animal or person, and forgetting to think about how her actions will affect herself. While I understand John's motives near the end, I definitely have beef with him over it. It obviously goes along with the myth so it was expected. It doesn't detract from my affection for the guy. He's been dealt a shitty hand and is only doing what he feels is the best thing for Pierce. A little selfishness may be involved, but hell, he's done his best to stand back and let the chic figure shit out on her own.

World-Building: The story is told in both past and present, so you have to pay attention. I actually loved this because we are given bits and pieces throughout the novel to piece together. The world is slowly built throughout this first installment, as we learn about the Underworld, John Hayden and the Furies right along with Pierce. I enjoyed the author's spin on the different mythological elements, especially the Underworld. We don't get a lot of time down there, so I am excited for book 2, Underworld.

Lasting Impressions: Color me impressed. I enjoyed the storytelling, the way it was told (flashbacks), the characters, the realizations, the emotions, the decisions. I especially loved the interactions between John and Piece. They are head-to-head through most of the novel because she is absolutely terrified of him, but there are touching moments via flashback and real-time. I am excited to see where this story leads.

Favorite Scene:

"Because no life - if it was led by a decent person - should go unremembered. So if, for instance, a soldier was betrayed by people he thought were his friends, his body tossed from a ship and abandoned to the waves, his family left to winder forever what happened to him, never knowing if he was alive, if he was well...That is a certain kind of hell all its own."

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Meg Cabot's latest series is a dip in to the supernatural and mythological. Abandon features a marketing tagline of "She knows what it's like to die. Now Death wants her back." It's... sort of accurate, but rather sounds like a horror movie rather than a supernatural romance, right?

With a new spin on the Persephone myth, Abandon moves the story of a young girl drawn in to a relationship with Death to the setting of modern-day Florida... specifically, to Isla Huesos (aka Island of Bones) where secrets (among other things) don't seem to stay buried. Seventeen-year-old Pierce Oliviera is a bit different from the average teenager. You might point to her family's incredible wealth (her father is CEO of a large, environment-damaging company) show more or her parents' messy divorce that has her mother dragging Pierce back to the mother's own family and hometown. But really, the main thing that separates Pierce from every other teen (or adult, for that matter) is that she's died and returned to life. She can patiently explain the scientific descriptions of her body's shut-down and revival or what studies say the often-reported bright light might mean... but she can't actually describe what happened to her or she'd be labeled as crazy. Crazy is exactly what most people thought when she came back to life and started talking about much more than a bright light: finding herself in a place where she was pushed into a line, this man on a giant horse who she'd met before as a child, her sudden removal to a very calm room with him before he talked about her staying there forever, and the moment when she threw tea in his face to escape...

But let's back up for a second here.

The story begins with all that death experience in the past and Pierce trying to start again as a normal teenager in this new town. Cabot chooses to reveal information about Pierce's past in flashbacks, often triggered by the sudden appearance of the dark and brooding lord of the underworld, who seems to lurk around town with alarming frequency... particularly when we go in to this bit about how there isn't just one underworld and this guy is actually not Hades or anything, he's just the designated overseer for this particular underworld entry point for this zone. Hm. I'll also note that Pierce's moments where she pauses to remember something aren't clear and obviously delineated from what's going on at the moment. They're really hazy and sketchy flashbacks that make the reader wish she'd be just a little clearer and just get it all out there already. Quite honestly, that's my big criticism of the book, so I might as well get it out there, too. If Cabot is trying to distract you from the fact that this is a story about a boy (whose name is John, btw) who wants a girl back and a girl who doesn't quite want to admit she wants the boy back... well, then at least she succeeded in confusing you for long stretches of time.

When you finally have all the puzzle pieces, the story is mildly intriguing -- Pierce, as a child, met a dark man in a cemetery as she waited for her mother and grandmother to finish dealing with the details of her grandfather's funeral. Years later, Pierce drowned in the swimming pool in a theoretical accident and met him once more. This time, he was very interested in keeping her with him, but she fled (which is somewhat uncharacteristically brave of Pierce) and now she's back in the real world... unable to separate her near-death experience from the rest of her life, no matter how hard she tries (which isn't very hard at all) as stalker-John keeps popping up.

Readers of Twilight might be particularly intrigued with Abandon as it had a similar feel of fated (yet founded on nothing substantial) love that the characters struggled against in a half-hearted way while darker forces lurk about. As a set-up to a series, Abandon doesn't quite feel complete enough on its own, so you should probably be willing to commit if you embark upon this one. It's not unpleasant, but Pierce wasn't exactly a strong heroine. She was, in fact, quite a dim bulb at times (example: trying to catch a lecherous teacher in the act but failing to have a camera or something stashed away? or a plan as to how to escape?). John always has to swoop in and save her and we then proceed with the inevitable descriptions of cosmic attraction.

Abandon is a quick read and will, I imagine, have some adult cross-over fans who appreciate a twist on Greek mythology and some steamy (yet still YA acceptable) romance. Rather than give this two stars, I yielded to the fact that I did fall in to the world quite quickly, though I think a large part of the interest was in untangling the narrative as it looped around on itself. As far as the Persephone stories for this year go, I preferred The Goddess Test, but I'll still be interested on seeing where Cabot takes this series arc, as I can't quite suss out exactly where this is headed while still sticking with the mythological angle. show less

Oh, Meg.

Meg, Meg, Meg. Why did you have to jump on the bad boy paranormal romance bandwagon? Why?

You did so well when you tore apart the new vampire genre in Insatiable, and then you produce this? My heart, Meg. It hurts.

Abandon, a "darkly re-imagined," modern re-telling of the Persephone and Hades myth, marks Meg Cabot's return to the YA paranormal realm. In Abandon, 17 year old Pierce is a NDE - a survivor of a near death experience from an accident when she was 15. Since then, she has been followed by a mysterious stranger named John, who has caused serious trouble for her in the living world. Pierce moves with her mother to Florida, but find she's closer to John than ever before and if she's not careful, she'll end up in the show more Underworld permanently.

I really wanted to like Abandon. You all know me, I'm a huge Meg Cabot fan. If I was a teenager in high school, I probably would've eaten this book up and demanded more immediately. However, now that I've become especially jaded and immediately suspicious of most paranormal romances in the YA section, I was not impressed.

While Pierce was a break from the standard Cabot heroine, there were very few moments when I genuinely liked her because she was so bland. Part of the problem was her narration. Cabot told the backstory of Pierce's death and first trip to Underworld retrospectively and stayed there for a good portion of the book. This led to a lot of repetition, melodramatic foreshadowing, and plot twists that didn't make sense. There is very little action in this book because it's the step-up for the triology, and there were probably only 40 pages I truly enjoyed out of the entire thing and they were in the last third of the book.

The biggest disappointment for me, however, was the love interest John. Once again, we have a heroine falling in love with an asshole she knows for an hour (no, I don't count the two years he STALKED her for "her protection" as relationship development) and staying with him even though she knows he'd rather her be dead and in the Underworld with him. There were few scenes between the two of them that didn't make me uncomfortable, and I kept waiting for Pierce to wake up from her fantasy and stop romanticizing John as a misunderstood, lonely bad boy. And that never happened. Maybe it will in future books, but I definitely won't be picking those up for a long time. show less

Pierce moves to Isla Huesos with her mom after her parent’s divorce and Pierce’s near death experience. One day she was trying to save a bird and ended up in a pool and hitting her head. While dead she ends up in a mysterious world where she meets this gorgeous boy John. After John explains that she has to stay in that world, Pierce panicked and escaped. But now John has appeared at Pierce’s new school and weird things are happening.

I’ve heard lot about Cabot’s books and I was curious to try this.
I liked the idea of Underworld and Persephone and all but it ended being just flat. I didn’t feel any chemistry between Pierce and John but gladly there was no love triangle. Can’t say the same about insta-love though. Can’t show more blame Pierce bolting after you hear you’re dead and you’re supposed to live there with this guy you met once when you were 7 years old.

I wasn’t too crazy about Pierce either who was too annoying and whiny but the book was rather enjoyable but I don’t see the hype over Cabot’s books. show less

First things first: it took me three tries to finally finish this book. I first started it in March 2011, then a second time in October 2011 and now I finally finished it, on the brink of 2012, the 29th December 2011. I'm not quite sure why it took me so many tries or why Abandon nearly turned into a DNF (Did Not Finish). Maybe I'm just growing tired of the same old concept: sweet, usually 17 year old girl falls in love with an Immortal and their love is of course fated. Throw in some ancient greek myths and I think about two thirds of all YA books are covered. Abandon is most certainly not an exception.

Basically, Pierce dies in an accident and goes to the Underworld where she meets John, someone she met once as a child. He "sorts" the show more souls, that means he decides who gets to go on the good boat and who has to take the bad boat. In any case, for some reason he falls in love with her (?) and offers her eternal life in the Underworld as his consort. Now, obviously Pierce doesn't want that (it wouldn't be YA if she did) and escapes. She is revived on the surface and turns into somewhat of a nutjob. Seeing evil everywhere and so on.

I have to say Abandon is clichéd in every possible way I can imagine. Heroine is rather rich, but of course down to earth. She immediately dislikes the popular kids, because that's what main characters do. Instead, she actively befriends the kids most would describe as weird. She hates John because he keeps protecting her from all the evil people who are suddenly after her, but because nobody seems to actually see John, she gets blamed for everything (for example: pulverizing her basket ball coach's hand).

I don't want to make this book sound worse than it is. The pacing is quite good I believe, and as much as I hate the cliché, the characters are rounder than usual. However, nothing much happens. Basically, the book starts one and a half years after Pierce's accident, when her parents are divorces, she has moved with her mother to Isla Huesos and ... that's about it. Someone dies, a storm hits, school gets cancelled and the evil doer is revealed. Sounds like a lot? Not really. There are some flashbacks, but other than that it seems to me Pierce whines about her life and about how hard everything is, and how she needs to protect everyone from the evil of this world.

I just can't recommend it. This is one of the most boring reads I have read in ages. show less

I am a huge fan of Meg Cabot, because whenever I pick up a book she's written, I know that it's going to be fun, hilarious, and entertaining. Her stories sweep me up, taking me into some sort of fiction-vortex, releasing me only after I've read through to the end. So it was a little surprising to realize that Abandon isn't this sort of fun, easy-reading type of story at all. In fact, it's dark, serious, and has very little laugh-out-loud humor at all.

But I liked it.

Given the subject matter, it only makes sense that this story isn't hilariously funny, and I think Meg does an excellent job in switching gears. What I appreciated most about the story is the set-up. For some, this book may drag a little, because of the care Meg puts into its show more development. (In my opinion, this just shows the trust she puts into her fans to stick with it until the end.) I really felt connected to Pierce and her situation. And though there wasn't a payoff large enough to make up for all the set-up at the beginning, the ending was enough to make me want the sequel, because I do think that Meg has an epic payoff for us at the end of the series and I can't wait to get it.

I also love how all the details at the beginning come together at the end -- I wasn't able to fully predict the ending of this one, which was very exciting. Also, this is a book that can lead to a lot of discussion about mythology and death, which I think is very cool. It would be a great addition to a book club or even a classroom, with the right lesson plan.

What can I say? Meg has once again got me hooked on yet another one of her series. (Not that I'm complaining!)

**I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. A special thanks goes to Ann Larson, Meg Cabot's assistant, for making sure I got on the publisher's list of ARC requests. And another thanks to Scholastic for sending me an ARC of this book. I greatly enjoyed it. show less