Genre: YA Fantasy
Paperback: 296 pages
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books
Paperback: 296 pages
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books
Release Date: May 1st 2011
Purchase: Amazon | The Book Depository
New from #1 New York Times bestselling author Meg Cabot, a dark, fantastical story about this world . . . and the underworld.
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.
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.
Review
First of all I just want to inform you my fellow readers and everyone who will read this review that I have loved Meg Cabot's writing ever since I've read her book, Vanished, and then the rest is history. I love how she writes the protagonist in the story, the way she lets you feel like you are that character. That's why picking up Abandon was a no-brainer. If somehow there's a chance that I get to enter a book and be the lead character, I will definitely choose to be in a Meg Cabot book, no doubt.
Pierce Oliviera's story is not that different from other Meg Cabot's heroines. She's a normal high school student and an intelligent girl who you'd want to have as a friend because she's easy to get along with. And like any of Cabot's works, it turns out that there's a catch and she's far from normal after all. Why? Because she's dead. She went to a place where she met John, a keeper of the Underworld, and that action permanently changed her life. Because of some incident, she managed to free herself and be reunited with her family. But not everything will be back the way it was before because her 'freedom' came with a price, a price that even she didn't expect coming.
I really enjoyed reading this book because first, the characters felt very realistic to me, like I'm actually inside the body of the protagonist. Second thing is the Greek-mythology-inspired plot. I remember myself immediately hating it the first time our professor gave those photocopies of the Greek gods' family tree. But apparently I have a soft spot for this particular mythology and I became fascinated with it. Although there are a lot of stories of betrayal, lust and war in their story, there remains love above all. And then there's Hades who was pretty much half of the reason why I survive that class LOL. You can only imagine how captivated I was with Abandon the moment I read its synopsis.
The course of the story was easy to follow. Time was flying by while I was reading and I didn't even notice that I was half way through the book. The progress of John and Pierce's romance was good and it was balanced perfectly. It doesn't eat much of the attention of the reader, which is just perfect. There was one revelation that totally caught me off-guard and left me wanting for the second book. That's why I highly recommend this book if you want to take a break from the usual Paranormal lore and want something quick and easy to read. This one deserves the 4 solid stars I give it.
Pierce Oliviera's story is not that different from other Meg Cabot's heroines. She's a normal high school student and an intelligent girl who you'd want to have as a friend because she's easy to get along with. And like any of Cabot's works, it turns out that there's a catch and she's far from normal after all. Why? Because she's dead. She went to a place where she met John, a keeper of the Underworld, and that action permanently changed her life. Because of some incident, she managed to free herself and be reunited with her family. But not everything will be back the way it was before because her 'freedom' came with a price, a price that even she didn't expect coming.
I really enjoyed reading this book because first, the characters felt very realistic to me, like I'm actually inside the body of the protagonist. Second thing is the Greek-mythology-inspired plot. I remember myself immediately hating it the first time our professor gave those photocopies of the Greek gods' family tree. But apparently I have a soft spot for this particular mythology and I became fascinated with it. Although there are a lot of stories of betrayal, lust and war in their story, there remains love above all. And then there's Hades who was pretty much half of the reason why I survive that class LOL. You can only imagine how captivated I was with Abandon the moment I read its synopsis.
The course of the story was easy to follow. Time was flying by while I was reading and I didn't even notice that I was half way through the book. The progress of John and Pierce's romance was good and it was balanced perfectly. It doesn't eat much of the attention of the reader, which is just perfect. There was one revelation that totally caught me off-guard and left me wanting for the second book. That's why I highly recommend this book if you want to take a break from the usual Paranormal lore and want something quick and easy to read. This one deserves the 4 solid stars I give it.
Author Bio
Meg Cabot was born on February 1, 1967, during the Chinese astrological year of the Fire Horse, a notoriously unlucky sign. Fortunately she grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, where few people were aware of the stigma of being a fire horse -- at least until Meg became a teenager, when she flunked freshman Algebra twice, then decided to cut her own bangs. After six years as an undergrad at Indiana University, Meg moved to New York City (in the middle of a sanitation worker strike) to pursue a career as an illustrator, at which she failed miserably, forcing her to turn to her favorite hobby--writing novels--for emotional succor. She worked various jobs to pay the rent, including a decade-long stint as the assistant manager of a 700 bed freshmen dormitory at NYU, a position she still occasionally misses.
She is now the author of nearly fifty books for both adults and teens, selling fifteen million copies worldwide, many of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers, most notably The Princess Diaries series, which is currently being published in over 38 countries, and was made into two hit movies by Disney. In addition, Meg wrote the Mediator and 1-800-Where-R-You? series (on which the television series, Missing, was based), two All-American Girl books, Teen Idol, Avalon High, How to Be Popular, Pants on Fire, Jinx, a series of novels written entirely in email format (Boy Next Door, Boy Meets Girl, and Every Boy's Got One), a mystery series (Size 12 Is Not Fat/ Size 14 Is Not Fat Either/Big Boned), and a chick-lit series called Queen of Babble.
Meg is now writing a new children's series called Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls. Her new paranormal series, Abandon, debuts in Summer of 2011.
Meg currently divides her time between Key West, Indiana, and New York City with a primary cat (one-eyed Henrietta), various back-up cats, and her husband, who doesn't know he married a fire horse. Please don't tell him.
She is now the author of nearly fifty books for both adults and teens, selling fifteen million copies worldwide, many of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers, most notably The Princess Diaries series, which is currently being published in over 38 countries, and was made into two hit movies by Disney. In addition, Meg wrote the Mediator and 1-800-Where-R-You? series (on which the television series, Missing, was based), two All-American Girl books, Teen Idol, Avalon High, How to Be Popular, Pants on Fire, Jinx, a series of novels written entirely in email format (Boy Next Door, Boy Meets Girl, and Every Boy's Got One), a mystery series (Size 12 Is Not Fat/ Size 14 Is Not Fat Either/Big Boned), and a chick-lit series called Queen of Babble.
Meg is now writing a new children's series called Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls. Her new paranormal series, Abandon, debuts in Summer of 2011.
Meg currently divides her time between Key West, Indiana, and New York City with a primary cat (one-eyed Henrietta), various back-up cats, and her husband, who doesn't know he married a fire horse. Please don't tell him.
