Abandon by Meg Cabot Book Review

Abandon

By: Meg Cabot

Publisher: Scholastic

Release Date: April 26, 2011

Pages: 320

Source: Barnes & Noble

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.

Ok you guys, about ten or so years ago Meg Cabot was one of my absolute favorite authors. I read and reread every single thing she wrote, forced my friends to read her books so we could gush over the guys together, obsessively checked her blog for new updates, I even wrote fan fiction for her Mediator series. Then as I got older something happened, and I found that I wasn’t connecting to her newer books as much.

So when I decided to pick up Abandon I was a little nervous that the same thing would happen, but I needn’t have worried! This is the first Meg Cabot book I’ve read in ages, and I can honestly say that I LOVED it.

One of the things that I really like about Abandon is that it fits into the ever popular paranormal genre of young adult fiction without actually including vampires, werewolves, zombies, faeries, fallen angels, etc. Not that I don’t love books about any of those things, but there are so many out there these days that this is a refreshing change. I’ve always loved the myth of Hades and Persephone and this is such a fun modern retelling.

Pierce is a likeable heroine, and her relationship with John is one of the highlights of the novel for me. Meg sure knows how to write a love interest (Jesse and Rob, anyone?) and every time John showed up I got excited. That element of danger and mystery just never gets old! He didn’t have many appearances in this book, but since this is the start of a trilogy I have faith that we’ll get to know him much better. ;)

I will say that I felt like the beginning dragged a bit, with Pierce constantly alluding to things that had happened without ever giving us the full story until midway through the book. This got frustrating after a while, but once everything was revealed the last half of the book was pretty much a whirlwind right up until the riveting cliffhanger conclusion.

I’m so glad I decided to read Abandon, I think it might be just the thing I needed to get me back on my Meg Cabot kick. And now I can’t wait to read the second book in the trilogy, Underworld!