Ever More by Alyson Noël

Ever Bloom is a beautiful girl with long blonde hair and goddess-like looks, but these days she spends her time hiding under shapeless hoodies and listening to blasting punk-rock music. She does these things to hide herself, because not that long ago, she was in a car crash, and ever since then, she hasn't been normal.

Now, Ever can see auras, and if she somehow manages to touch them, she knows all about them. And she can see ghosts. Well, at least one ghost, that of her young sister, Riley, who was killed in the crash along with their parents and their dog, Buttercup. Ever is no longer normal, and she wants desperately to be normal. But she and normal are no longer friends, they're not even acquainted, and she knows that everything was all her fault.

When her parents, sister and dog died in the car accident, she died with them, but didn't cross over to heaven with her family. Instead, she somehow survived, and ended up with her psychic gifts. But she can't control them, so she tries not to touch anyone or look at anyone. The only ones she exempts from this are her friends, Miles, a gay guy who does more than his share of theatre, and Haven, a girl neglected by her family who acts out by dressing up in unusual styles- this year, it's goth, to get attention from her family and others. But no one really seems to notice or care.

Then a boy named Damen Auguste enters school, and Ever is determined to keep well away from him. But when her fingers brush his, she is shocked to feel- absolutely nothing. No rush of thoughts and memories. When she looks at him, she can't see his aura, either. To everyone's surprise, Damen pays Ever attention, but she can't help but notice he pays attention to other women, too. Every time she sees him, he seems to be with someone else, and while she feels he might be falling in love with him, she's irritated at how he spreads his attention around so liberally. And her friend Haven's called Dibs on him, so she's not too happy that Ever can't control herself around Damen.

Haven ends up hanging with a woman she meets at a twelve step meeting (she goes to them for the loving attention she garners from the other participants), and this woman, Drina, claims to be a donor, someone who goes to parties with vampires and donates blood to them. Soon, Haven is spending more time with Drina, and turning into a clone of her as well. Ever is concerned for her friend, but when a mutual friend of theirs turns up dead, Haven appears to recover after a bout of bad stomach flu.

But while Ever had sneaked into Damen's apartment, thinking that he was some kind of vampire, now she can't remember ever going there. Damen seems to be more interested in Drina than in her, and Ever slips into a haze of alcohol when she realizes that it blocks her psychic abilities. Messed up as she is, will Ever be able to fight back against an enemy who wants to wipe her completely off the earth? And has her penchant for Alcoholic stupor ruined the gifts that might be able to save her life? But when she realizes the true reason her life was so messed up, can she fight back and save herself from eternal dissolution?

I found this book interesting at first, but the heroine, Ever, is someone who is extremely passive for 90% of the book, and I found that incredibly boring to read. She doesn't act, she only reacts, and that was a major yawn for me. Admittedly. she's still hurting from what happened to her family, and blaming herself for their deaths, but her passiveness and reactions to the people around her just made me annoyed.

I also disliked the resolution of Amber's blaming herself for her parents death. Basically the villain appears and says, "Oh, it was all me. I caused the crash- you didn't have anything to do with it." Which I felt was an easy out for that particular story thread. It would have been nice to make Ever actually deal with the feelings and not just obliterate them wholesale- it would have made her a more believable character.

The hero, Damen, is so good a character that it's like he poops gold and diamonds and farts expensive french perfume. Even Ever seems to realize this, as she begs him to tell her something he's bad at so that she doesn't feel like a horrible, talentless schlub compared to him. I also wasn't so sanguine about how she was the reincarnation of a woman he'd been in love with many times before, but also lost many times before. Is that an implication he likes her for her, or is he trying to replace the original her he fell in love with? I wasn't sure, but the thought made me uneasy.

This whole book left me with a vaguely unsatisfied feeling, but I can't point to one big flaw that killed my enjoyment, since it was more like a host of little ones. This book is just... lacking, and I'm afraid I can't articulate it any better than that. Not recommended at all.