Abandon by Meg Cabot

Published January 2011 by Point
Format: Hardcover
ISBN 9780545284103
304 Pages
Series? Abandon | #1
Rating: High School
Source: Library
Challenges: 2012
GoodReads

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Pierce knows what it's like to die, because she's done it before. 

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. 

The myth of Persephone...darkly reimagined.

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What I liked:

1. I really liked the idea of a modern Hades and Persephone story. Their story has always interested me. Persephone has always been one of my favorite gods. I have read and liked many of Meg Cabot's books so I thought that it would be great.
2. The fact that Meg Cabot had finally written a main female character with a different personality. If you have read enough Meg Cabot books than you might have seen the pattern of always having happy, naive, well-meaning, book smart, but mostly clueless when it comes to actual people. It can get old and Pierce is certainly not a thing like that.

What I did not like:

1. The book has nothing to do with Greek mythology and any passing resemblance to actual mythology is only said in passing or else completely wrong. She changed Hades' name to John and said that furies were dead people who were angry that they had died.
2. The flashbacks. The book is told almost entirely in flashbacks. Not just things that had happened in the past but things that had just happened would not be mentioned until two pages later and then told as a flashback. There was also no dividers for whether you were in a flashback or in the actual present so it was hard to tell where you were.
3. Interruptions. The sentences interrupted themselves and not just with small side notes but sometimes two or three whole sentences. The rest of the sentence would pick up after the parenthesis as a whole different sentence. In the end there wold be two sentences that made absolutely no sense. A sentence is supposed to complete a thought but many times in order for one thought to be completed she needed a whole paragraph. It did not help with comprehension.
4. The characters. Pierce may not have been the regular female lead character for Meg Cabot but I did not like her. She was clueless on too many points to mention them all and it would only upset me to have to bring any of them up. I will just warn you that whenever she opened her mouth or thought something stupid was going to come out of it. Since I did not see much of John I can't really say anything good or bad about him which is even sadder.
5. Coffin Night. There were pages on pages talking about coffin night and yet it ended up having no significance for the book. Another point that has to do with this one: we were never given enough information. And it did not seem to be something that had to do with the plot. It just felt like either it was not thought out all of the way through or it was purposely not given to us because it would force readers to continue the book even though we never were told anything.

Conclusion: I did not like this book. It did not deliver on what it was supposed to and maybe if it had not been touted as a dark re-telling of Hades and Persephone it would have gotten a better review. The problem was that it was and I went in expecting something and was unable to find it. While it was not for me people who are less particular about their Greek myth re-tellings or just people who are not as well versed in mythology will probably like this book.