ARGH! And just when I found a good book too!
Okay, I started reading this book with low expectations. Can you really blame me? These days anything that smells like YA fantasy has a disgusting odor to it. I feel as if YA fantasy books are getting more and more mediocre with every one I pick up. What is up with the corny romances, the too stupid to live heroines and the heroes whose mood meters seem to be stuck on either brooding and violent supposed-to-be-sexy-but-definately-is-not anger.
But Nevermore was completely surprising. Here are the refreshing reasons why. Sorry if fellow reviewers have already made these points:
1.The heroine wasn't annoying: WOW! That's a shocking one. I've come to grudgingly except that any main female that falls in love with a dark and dreary boy is going to irritate the hell out of me with their whining and helplessness. But Isobel is smart. Not Hermione Granger smart but I actually found myself liking her. She doesn't whine and she actually goes out and DOES things as opposed to other heroines who sit around and let their manly men handle things.
2.The hero wasn't annoying: DOUBLE WOW! Yes he was emo. Yes he was blunt. But he didn't have the "I'm hot lookit my abs and I'm brooding and I throw temper tantrums but I will protect you, you are my life and my soul and my destiny!"-vibe going on that is becoming the norm for fantasy heroes. Varen was interesting and, above all, NICE. Yea for nice blokes!
3.The parents were involved in their daughter's life: What a relief. In a genre where parents commonly look the other way as their teenagers turn into wolves every night and piss all over their lawn, it was a welcome relief to see parents who actually care. It kind of almost seems realistic. Can you believe it?
4.No love triangle: I had nothing against love triangles before I read 10,000 of them. Nevermore was a welcome break.
5.Intersting imagery: Nevermore centers around Poe and I loved the strange creatures and people/demons that isobel encounters in the dream world. Sometimes it was on the scary side but that was a welcome relief from what usually haunts the YA shelf.

But the ending. Ugh! Cliff hanger to the extreme. I am angry about this and that is why this book got 4 stars. And I would have liked it a bit more if it had not been plotted like Twilight and countless other books where mostly everything in the first 3/4s of the book is about the characters falling in love and the last 1/4 of the book is about the supernatural. It would have made the transition to the supernatural less jarring if there had been a little more of the supernatural in the beginning.
But enough happens in this book to keep you intrigued until the supernatural shows up. 4 stars, but i'm still angry about that ending.