Abandon (Abandon Trilogy #1)

I am a HUGE Meg Cabot fan. I will read anything she writes, really. So whenever she comes out with a new book, ESPECIALLY a new series, I do several jumps for joy. And then hope it doesn’t let me down because I built it up so much in my head.

Abandon? Totally did not let me down. Seriously, Meg Cabot knows how to write awesome paranormal-ishhhh series. I mean, I wouldn’t say that I love it more than the Mediator series (at least not yet), but taking Greek Mythology and twisting it and modernizing it and setting it on an island off of Florida? Pretty genius.

The characters in Abandon, in my opinion, were very likable. I loved Pierce, and I thought her reaction to…everything, really, was very believable. I think some of the problems that arise in a situation like this (creepy guy wants you to be his wife & live in his kingdom) is that the character accepts/believes it too easily, but I think Pierce’s reactions matched my own very well. John was quite swoon-worthy and complex and rather interesting, and I’m definitely looking forward to more swoony moments in the second book.

I thought the writing style was much different from previous books from Meg Cabot. All of her books, that I can recall, are told in a linear style. Each event as it happens, with maybe a few flashbacks or anecdotes thrown in. But in Abandon, the narrative definitely leaped around and sometimes I had to go back and reread to figure out where I was in the story. This didn’t really detract from the experience, though. I actually liked the jumping around-ness.

Overall, I thought Abandon was amazing. It’s a great set up for the trilogy – part back story and part new story, and I thought it worked really well combined. I’m looking forward to picking up the next book in the trilogy, and, of course, anything else Meg Cabot ever writes.

Review originally posted on my blog http://hobbitsies.net/2011/04/abandon-by-meg-cabot/

I have been sort of obsessed with books that reinvent the Hades/Persephone myth lately, so naturally, Abandon was on my list of books to read. After reading it, I'm sort of stuck on how I feel about it. I love the storyline that Meg Cabot puts forth and I think it had tremendous potentional, but for me, the actual book fell short. It was slow and at times awkwardly written. That being said, I did still enjoy it and plan to read Underworld very soon.

Perhaps the reason I have blah feelings toward it is the main character, Pierce. She just seems unbelievably nieve to me--I mean....how can you end up at a River with boats ferrying people to different places while a man dressed all in black uses his thunderous voice to control the rioting and then NOT put two and two together that...Oh, maybe I'm in the Underworld. And throughout the entire novel things that should have been so obvious (had she had any education at all)just went completely over her head. I got really frustrated at how little she understood. Her attitude towards John (resident Hottie God of the Underworld)really irked me, too, after he repeatedly shows up to help her.

Okay...so what did I like? Obviously the guy--John. Meg captured his brokeness brilliantly. He's tortured by his job and his feelings for Pierce, and that shows in his actions and personality. I really felt for him the moment he was first introduced. However, he is hardly in the book at all until the end--which, in my opinion, was a huge mistake. I wished there were more circumstances where he would have shown up so we could get to know him a little better.

Overall, not the best Persephone/Hades reinvention out there, but I still somewhat enjoyed it. I'm hoping that the second book will move a little faster, that Pierce will get over herself, and that we will see more John!

When I started reading Abandon, I wasn't quite feeling it. It kept jumping around from the past to the present to the past again and it was kind of hard to keep up. The transitions weren't at all obvious and a lot of the times I'd have to flip back to check where in the timeline I was. In the end, though, I was devouring it.

I thought I might have a problem with the relationship between Pierce and John because the whole we-barely-know-each-other-but-it's-love paranormal romance thing doesn't usually appeal to me, but I ended up really rooting for them to be together. I'm not sure what it was about John, but he's quite swoony. And once again, the typical paranormal bad boy is not at all my thing. In fact, I'm more of cute-and-sweet-nerd love kind of gal. Maybe it's that John may have been kind of grumpy sometimes but he also just seemed kind of innocent. Like he has no idea why a girl would be terrified at the thought of spending forever in some strange guys room.

I liked that there was a lot of setup in Abandon, but it didn't feel like there was. A lot of the side story-lines will carry into the next book, but I didn't even realize they weren't going to be tied up until I turned the last page. Also, for all you cliffhanger haters, I didn't feel like the end was that much of a cliffhanger. Sure, it's not all tied up with a pretty little bow but it's not like "will Pierce make it out of the River Styx alive or will she DROWN?! Find out next time!" And no, that's not a spoiler.

One minor little gripe I had was with the way the dialogue was broken up. I don't like when it looks like this: "What," Alex asked while turning around from his post at the dishes, "do you think you are doing?" It just feels so unnatural and it happened SO many times.

The Nutshell: Abandon started out a little rocky for me, but I ended up loving it. I mean, if paper burns were possible, I would probably have had them from flipping pages so fast. If you like variations of Greek mythology then this is definitely a book for you. If you like Meg Cabot with a dash (and then some) of paranormal, then give Abandon a try. If you like the wounded-bad-boy thing then what are you waiting for?

liked it

I enjoyed the mystery of this book a lot. Not very suspenseful but it leaves you wondering what happened and who is this strange guy really is. I liked the modern take on a story from Greek mythology.

I love Meg Cabot books and greek mythology so I was sooooo excited about this book! Pierce, the daughter of a famous businessman and a nature conservationist almost dies after she drowns in her pool. In fact she did die but no one will believe what happened. Turns out she'd meet a death diety before at her grandfather's funeral so when she ends up in a strange place afer being in a pool the second before she naturally asks the one person who she's meet before to help her. Only he misunderstands and he brings her back to his house to be his consort so she can't 'move on' or go back to life but she escapes. The only proof she has that this ever happened is a necklace that came with her after she escaped.

Long story short it's a typical 'girl moves to new town after mysterious incident' story except the characters, like her friend Kayla or her cousin Alex, weren't really that well developed as I'd've liked them to be and John(the love interest and death diety) isn't really explained at all. Like we don't know why he's a death diety, he and Pierce never seriously talk unless it's arguing and the most we learn about him is from a freaky cemetery groundskeeper! The story seemed to catch up to itself pretty quickly at the end, like one minute it's pretty ordinary(like most of the rest of the book) but not boring and the next minute in like the last 15 pages all is revealed out of the blue.

On a more positive note Pierce was a great main character because she was pretty realistic, the storyline was unexpected and we don't get all the facts at once but they're sort of spread out throughout.

It wasn't what I expected and I don't know if that was a good thing or not.