Review: Abandon by Meg Cabot

World! I know Meg Cabot is a dearly loved author, twice nominated for BBAW's Best Author Blog Award and I have personally quite loved her blog for some time. But I had never read any of her books, so when I was invited to read Abandon, I thought, sure why not? Plus it's paranormal (well kind of) which I can really enjoy (and other times not enjoy)

Abandon is the story of Pierce a seventeen year old girl who had a near death experience when she was fifteen years old. She was whisked to the Underworld where she met John. John gave her a mysterious necklace that alerts her to when evil is around and when she fought to go back to the living and he let her or she was resuscitated or something, I wasn't exactly clear. In any case the diamond necklace alerts her to danger (the FURIES) and John is a constant presence.

Some bad things have happened to people around Pierce and now she's all suspicious of John and the necklace. Her mother has moved her back to the island where she grew up and there's a creepy cemetery there and also some creepy customs and I JUST REALIZED THIS REVIEW IS ALL OVER THE PLACE. I think that's because the book felt a bit all over the place to me. This was definitely a book setting up a series and while sometimes I don't particularly mind those, in this case I was pretty bored. This is a retelling of Persephone, and Pierce's backstory was like a big info dump and there wasn't any forward moving plot until the last 50 pages or so.

It's also a classic paranormal story in many ways, John, this death deity, is who knows how old, but for some unknown reason he's in love with Pierce. He's dark and mysterious, oozing sexual chemistry, and protective to the point of killing other people. We've heard this one before.

Also, I always thought Meg Cabot was more about the humor. She has such a light touch in her blog entries and so I assumed her books would be similar and while that is definitely going on in Abandon, it's not enough to save it and feels oddly out of place in a book about death and dying and the underworld.

Ultimately, this is a well written book but it's not all that unique, and I found it kind of boring. You may feel differently.

Rating: 3/5
Source of Book: Provided by publicist
Publisher: Point (Scholastic)



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One lucky winner will get a copy of Abandon and a bracelet with a quote from the book. US residents only.