Abandon by Meg Cabot

Abandon by Meg Cabot
Point, 320 pages
Purchased

"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."

Abandon was kind of a no-brainer for my next read. I love Meg Cabot and she went all mythological on us - right  up my alley. I had very high hopes for this book, and my first mistake was going into it thinking it was going to be amazing. However, I am extremely happy that this is going to be trilogy, otherwise I would have been very upset with the amount of trees wasted on publishing this book. I would say that this book has "First In a Series Syndrome," a disease that us at The Readable Kingdom have started to notice. In other words, the first book in the series is a let down, but the series still turns out good or amazing.

To begin with, I found it infuriating that you knew something had happened to Pierce that made her switch schools, and you really never find out until over halfway through the book. If you have read Fallen by Lauren Kate, you will know exactly what I am talking about. To make matters even worse, Cabot never comes straight out and tells you what happened. Instead, she lets you piece together these extremely, and I repeat, EXTREMELY, vague pieces of information to try and figure out what happened. You may accuse me of being a lazy reader in this sense, but please, read the book before you judge me, and you will understand what I am referring to.

You could say that my main issue with this book was that the back story was not delivered effectively, which in turn made for a very difficult read. Too much of the book was switching from the present to flashbacks from the past. It literally drove me nuts, but something good did come of this, believe it or not.

I have very high hopes for the next book. Overall, the plot and concept of Abandon were enjoyable and entertaining. Now that we have almost all of the back story out of the way, I am hoping that the next book will not be in the infuriating writing style of the first, seeing as how it would be unnecessary. So, all in all, Abandon was most certainly a let down, but it has paved the way to potentially having a superb sequel.

Rating: 3 stars - I liked it. Worth borrowing. (Note: Would have been 2 stars, but the potential for a great sequel saved this book's butt.)