Faerytale Magic Part III: A Book Review on Endlessly by Kiersten White

Evie is ready to settle down for good with her normal life filled with her not-so-normal boyfriend, vampire roommate and the horde of paranormals coming in and out of her life at the diner she works at. When a new head at the IPCA tries to blackmail Evie into working for them again full-time, Evie begins to understand exactly where her place in the world is and she's determined to set things right to keep her loved ones safe. But when the Faeries once again return with information regarding the purpose to her existence, Evie has to decide if she's willing to risk everything to help save the paranormals she's worked so hard to keep in line or turn her back on her destiny, once and for all.

Aww damn phooey; mumble grumble boo.

It feels like it took me ages to finish Endlessly. Really, I started it right after finishing Supernaturally, honest I did, but I only just finished it a couple of days ago.

White's writing is concise, the voice is strong. But this time around, there is absolutely no denying it; Evie is definitely whining a LOT in this book. Whenever she hears something she doesn't like, or she just doesn't want to listen to something, she just walks away, or stomps away usually. It got tiresome, to say the least.

Then there was the lack of character development for our main leads. Evie and Lend have absolutely no growth in this book whatsoever. Evie is determined not to help ANY paranormal who seems to be in league with the faeries. She wants absolutely nothing to do with the faeries and their prophecies, therefore anyone even seen with a faerie is automatically against Evie. While I can understand her reluctance, her constant refusal to do something as simple as just listen to other paranormals about the situation, such as Lend's mother, became rather grating on the nerves.

Then there was the definite selfish slant to Evie's every word and action. One minute, she hates Reth and Jack, then the next they're exactly who she needs by her side and she finds them amusing. She kept changing her mind about them as it suited her needs every few hours or so, as it turns out there's a time crunch to this book. Then she has a line of dialogue where she seemed to tell Arianna that nothing but Lend was important to her, which implies that Arianna isn't important to her either, and that's just wrong to me. After everything that Arianna has done for Evie, this is how Evie treats her? Horrible. And there's not much growth after that either.

As for Lend, he ends up captured and cursed for a good chunk of the book, which makes him near non-existent to the storyline. He deals with the fact that his fate is tied in with the paranormals desperate for Evie's help, and he has a choice to make to either go with them or stay behind with Evie. And while that could have led to some interesting development for him, the focus was shifted to show only how much Evie wanted Lend to stay with her and NOT on the various ramifications that either choice would have for Lend. Bah.

The only character with some semblance of development was Reth, which is unfortunate because I find that I extremely dislike Reth. Not that the development worked to make me like him any better. It was supposed to provide a kind of justification for the role he's had in Evie's life and all it did was ensure the fact that I really didn't care for him at all. And he seriously still has this delusional obsession with taking Evie away with him and being secure in the fact that he believes that Evie will choose to go with him in the end. All to which I say, pathetic.

Now for a SPOILER for the plot. As it turns out, Evie's purpose is to open a gate to the world the paranormals were ripped from as a result of the faeries' selfish intentions. The faeries opened a gate to our world and dragged every paranormal against their will into this one. They created the "The Empty Ones" through a union between a human and a faerie so that these children, meaning Evie and Vivian, could be a tool. These "Empty Ones" would use the souls they are able to take to gain enough power to open the gate once again. Now Evie needs to help them go home before the gate is closed for good. (Highlight between this sentence and the last for the spoiler).

It takes ages for the plot to finally come to fruition. Evie learns what her true purpose is early on and drags her heels and stomps away constantly before she finally decides to embrace her destiny. Then there's some trouble with the new woman in charge at the IPCA, and this book just felt like it had too much crammed in for a satisfying finale. Raquel and David are still around but they're still relegated to mostly sideline action. There's some new action with Carlee, Evie's one true human friend at school, but not really enough to make a lot of impact on the whole of the story.

And that's it. Everything ends up tied up all neat in a bow. Evie does a lot of kick-ass things but without her growth or any sacrifices to get a happy ending that is really meaningful, it seems just a little too cut and dry for me to cheer for Evie in the end. While the book had its merits, it wasn't enough to really give the kind of satisfying ending to the trilogy.


Rating: 6 Stars

There was so much going on in this book and yet not enough growth to our favorite people in this story. Evie just wanted everything over with because the prophecy had been something with too much control over her life and she just wanted it gone. She didn't really finish things for good reasons. Everything she did was only for herself. This book did manage to finish things off on a good note though, so at least there's that.



Overall Trilogy Rating: 7 Stars

Okay, I rounded up the stars here. Technically if you do the math, it comes out to 6.83 Stars but I'm willing to boost the overall rating to 7 stars. I loved Evie for the most part. I thought her world was brilliant. I loved Arianna and Lend and Raquel, and I even found myself liking Vivian and Jack. I think a lot of YA readers out there will love this series. It's different and engaging enough to ensure that I will follow up on White's upcoming releases when they come out, so that there says a lot about these books.