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3.6 AVERAGE
3.6 AVERAGE
Having not read the first book in this series I was able to follow along with the characters and the story-line and enjoy it. I would have preferred a bit more background on Pierce and John which probably could have made the story more compelling and entertaining but still this was a good book. John came across as a bit controlling but since he's the god of the Underworld I guess that's a bit expected. I was hoping there would be a big knock-down, drag out fight between John and the Furies but that didn't really happen that said the book is not without action. Overall Underworld was a good modern-day twist on the ancient myth of Persephone that fans of Aimee Carter's The Goddess Test series or YA fiction in general will probably enjoy.
I received my complimentary copy from the publisher through the Goodreads First Reads giveaway program.
I received my complimentary copy from the publisher through the Goodreads First Reads giveaway program.
I love Greek mythology, but this book's mythology content didn't make up for how jumbled the line of action was.
A bit disappointing though I look forward to the next book.
A bit disappointing though I look forward to the next book.
this book was great! i really liked the ending especially when Kayla shows up. one of the only books i've read where the sequel is better than the first. i'm hoping the last one will be the best.
i originally read this book first but then i found out this was a sequel so i read abandon then this.
i originally read this book first but then i found out this was a sequel so i read abandon then this.
I would not have finished this if I hadn't gotten both the first and second of this trilogy on audiobook. It was probably the worst book I have ever read- no plot, stupid character, and a truly scary relationship ( if you can even call it that). Will not be reading the third.
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Audiobook:
Narrated by Natalia Payne, she was pretty good. She was good at masculine voices as well. She also has narrated some Jodi Picoult books as well. Audio is definitely worth buying/listening to.
Book Review:
I loved Abandon. I love the whole mythological aspect of this series. Underworld was good, not great. I think Meg Cabot is an awesome writer/author. She does an amazing job with character development. Even though I thought Underworld was just okay, I'm in love with this series, mostly the characters. John Hayden is Lord of the Underworld, and Pierce Oliviera is living with him in Underworld. What I found strange about this book, is that this three hundred and thirty-three page book happens in the course of two days. It was very noticeable, it just felt rushed.
John Hayden is a great character. He is very loving and protective. he also seemed somewhat sneaky and deceitful. Pierce Oliviera is fascinating, she is very smart, but somewhat naive. Both of them together though, just makes sense. They have awesome chemistry together. I'm hoping the third book in this series, wraps things up nicely. I looking forward to reading it.
-Amy
Readingteen.net
Narrated by Natalia Payne, she was pretty good. She was good at masculine voices as well. She also has narrated some Jodi Picoult books as well. Audio is definitely worth buying/listening to.
Book Review:
I loved Abandon. I love the whole mythological aspect of this series. Underworld was good, not great. I think Meg Cabot is an awesome writer/author. She does an amazing job with character development. Even though I thought Underworld was just okay, I'm in love with this series, mostly the characters. John Hayden is Lord of the Underworld, and Pierce Oliviera is living with him in Underworld. What I found strange about this book, is that this three hundred and thirty-three page book happens in the course of two days. It was very noticeable, it just felt rushed.
John Hayden is a great character. He is very loving and protective. he also seemed somewhat sneaky and deceitful. Pierce Oliviera is fascinating, she is very smart, but somewhat naive. Both of them together though, just makes sense. They have awesome chemistry together. I'm hoping the third book in this series, wraps things up nicely. I looking forward to reading it.
-Amy
Readingteen.net
abusive boyfriend + no plot = this book is very bad
☆☆☆☆☆
(0 stars)
It's been a while since I read Abandon, the first book in this afterlife para-romance vaguely based on the Hades/Persephone myth. At the time my library didn't have either of the next two books, and I was happy to move on from the series. While I actually gave Abandon a high rating (3 stars), that was mostly because Meg Cabot is a strong writer of teen contemporary, and I enjoyed her style enough that the troubling aspects of the romance weren't so bad.
That changes, hard left, in this book. For one, it's a slog to wade through, with almost nothing happening and a climax so poorly defined... well, I'm not sure it counts as a climax. Cabot had me feeling for the characters last time, and the strong voice of the narrator, but this book is absent of humor or heart. It is a heartless, boring story of false information, lying, unsubstantiated threats, and bewildering magic.
Perhaps the largest threat to the sanctity of my sanity (and this book having any redeeming factors) is the romance. I've read through quite a lot of bad romances in my time in the 2010s para-ro bubble, but John takes the cake of creeps. He displays in this book inhumane levels of skeevy, controlling behavior- from shouting to lying to manipulating Pierce into thinking she's in the wrong. This is textbook one of the most abusive relationships I've ever seen being treated like it's okay.
Plot?
Middle book slump ahoy! Yeah, there's not a plot in this book. Look, I can sum it up in two sentences: Pierce sees her cousin Alex will potentially be in danger in a magic vision, so her and John return to the living world to help. After surviving Fury attacks and Alex briefly dying, they return to the underworld.
That, honest, is it. Even if I squeeze out small supplementary details, there's very little learned or happening in this book. We learn John was a ship's captain, and meet some of his crew who work in the afterlife with him. We learn John accidentally killed his abusive father. The mean kids on the island have evil families involved in drug trafficking. Pierce and John have sex and it means Pierce can never age or live a normal life.
You might note even then most of those details are things we learn, rather than direct action. Pierce and John tussle with some Furies (the underworld demons who love chaos and harassing John), but that is it for any action in this book. Most of the supplementary in between time is Pierce and John disagreeing or having vague, unhappy conversations with each other.
The plot, it would appear, is just their relationship.
Holy Abusive Relationship, Pierce!
It was incredibly difficult for me to power through this book at the start especially due to how much focus there is on John and Pierce's romance- and how wrong that romance clearly is. Right off the bat is an encounter where Pierce eats food in the underworld. She's still human, and thus hungry, and according to the myth of Persephone, the goddess was only stuck because she ate a pomegranate. We can question her logic there, but she thinks it's perfectly safe to eat underworld food because John is the one who orders it to their room, and she loves/trusts John would be good to her.
After enjoying her breakfast, John lets her know eating any food in the underworld actually binds you there. While it doesn't mean she can never leave (as she freaks out and assumes), she will not age and be bound to him/this place forever. John states he 'thought she knew', which is quite a ridiculous thing to presume. For one, John and Pierce are never apart in this book. There's perhaps one ten minute window, after the food eating thing, but otherwise John is either in the same room or just around the corner. Him thinking Pierce just knows all the strange rules of the underworld is working on nothing.
But perhaps he means it to be from nothing. We later learn John was lying to Pierce there- food in the underworld means nothing! Yep, big first scene and fight and event of this book is a lie the boyfriend made up to try and control the main character. He even admits he didn't like how she was freaking out and having second thoughts about 'cohabiting' with him, since she hadn't 'even been there twenty four hours'. So he lied, to freak her out and think she would now be doomed to outlive her family, just so she'd stay put.
There's a similarly bad thing in the first food eating scene. When John tells Pierce she'll now live forever and be bound to this underworld, she freaks out and asks why he didn't tell her, since she'll now watch her mother grow old and die. He says she has to eat, since otherwise she'd starve, and Pierce states maybe she'd rather starve than risk never being able to see her mother/being forced to outlive her mother. John, at this, grows angry at Pierce: she has implied she'd rather die than be with him! His anger causes small earthquakes and thunder to rumble, bringing Pierce to apologize for something which is squarely his fault.
John uses thunder and shouting to scare Pierce and prompt her to apologize multiple times. It's a scare tactic to control her, and it kind of turns my stomach to see her submit and apologize to this guy. She takes things as her fault when they are always his. A good example is in some of the notes I took, approximations of actual quotes from the book, which shows how abusive this relationship is.
Pierce: i love you but i am not experienced with dating. I woke up in your arms last night in your bed and did not invite you there. I like you but we need to take physical relationship stuff slower, i am 17 and you are my 1st boyfriend. I am not ready to date physically
Love interest john: (ANGRY, MAKES THUNDER BOOM) how dare you think i slept in the bed with you. YOU called to ME in your nightmares HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE ME of not respecting you
MC: (COMPELLED TO APOLOGIZE) you are right... i am so sorry to offend you...
Love interest john: you clearly hate me. You hate being here. You regret coming here.
MC: no! I just want a slower pace to our relation-
John: Well you are stuck here with me forever. Idiot. I never told you but that breakfast i offered you earlier? Binds you here forever. Just thought you would assume that. So there
Then, shortly:
Him: if i told you this food would make you immortal, what, would you have not blindly ate it?
MC, a 17 yr old with a family and friends: YEAH
Him: you.... would rather die than be with me??!!! >:(
MC, emotionally trained to apologize whenever this jackass is angry: sorry didnt mean to hurt your feelings
Look at this incredibly unhealthy dynamic.
Pierce constantly apologizes for upsetting John's feelings and not thinking about his hardships, while he never spares a thought for what she is going through. She starts the book sure of her love for him, and doesn't really waver in this fact at any point, adding an uncomfortable layer to her: she appears to be almost brainwashed by John to forgive and love him, and is punished when she doesn't. To add another sinister layer, I'll remind you John met her when she was 6, and he's been following her around and watching her since she was 15.
Their bad bad relationship is put on hold for a while while the 'plot' happens, but towards the end they return to the underworld and it... gets worse. Pierce and John have sex. There's no build up to this, nothing about their middle book journey that suggests they've been getting closer and are ready for this step, but once they return to the Underworld they immediately decide to have sex.
As they are getting hot and heavy, John reminds Pierce she said she 'wanted to take things slow', but she says she's okay now (consent is good). However, he then says 'what about the consequences', and she assures him she isn't worried. Pierce believes he is referring to pregnancy (no condoms in the afterlife?), and Pierce recently learned in her one private conversation that she can't become pregnant in the Underworld. They then have sex. A bit after this, John reveals that sex is the real pomegranate- he was lying about the food thing, but having sex with him means she is now non-aging and stuck with him forever.
While this is obviously a miscommunication that John tried to check in about, I'd very much argue he did not try hard enough. The fruit situation returns: why would he assume Pierce knows anything about the rules of the afterlife he hasn't told her, since he's always been around her? When Pierce says yes to the consequences, he should have double checked. 'Which consequences, I think we really need to establish this, this is an irreversible thing'. He might have been lying about the fruit thing (as he reveals when he tells the sex thing), but he saw how upset Pierce was at the idea. Assuming Pierce totally knows and has come to terms with being immortal and stuck in the Underworld in the day since she was terrified due to fruit-curses is ridiculous.
In true John/Pierce fashion, their conversation on this subject involves John blaming Pierce, and Pierce accepting the blame and apologizing. For not knowing something as ridiculous as 'sex will trap you with me forever', which John totally knew.
To paraphrase the scene:
John: I love you Pierce. You're so good and make me want to be good. I was afraid (hence fruit thing) you would leave when you realized I'm not a very good person
Pierce: (tries to say something) (thinks she would never leave him and doesn't care he killed his own father)
John: You nearly died yesterday so I wanted to show you how I loved you, hence sex. It went further than I expected BUT YOU DIDN'T STOP ME EVEN THOUGH I /TOLD/ YOU WE COULD SLOW DOWN.
Pierce: You did..... You're right.... :(
John here leverages his basic good manners (checking if Pierce was ready for sex and wanted to slow down or not) as an excuse for why he had sex with her and doomed her to eternity with him, despite the fact she didn't know that was the consequence.
This is such an unhealthy, nasty relationship and sets all the wrong ideas out there.
Last book got a weirdly high rating- it was a quick read, and even fun at points. It succeeded on the slice of life content, the energy of family and friends that carried us past the "barely in the book but very creepy" love interest. This book is all about John, and he's the worst. There's no fun anymore. There's no quality writing shining through garbage tropes. It's just a bad YA book with a horrible relationship that is treated as an ideal.
Trust me, I'm the kind of person who likes a spooky scary underworld death deity boyfriend in theory, even a mysterious brooding type. YA, however, fails at this trope ten times out of ten: they forget things like consent, communication, and actually not being a horrible person. If I met John in an alley I would beat him with a baseball bat and take his place as a death deity. I would do a better job, and my first soul would be his (and he would be put on the boat to hell).
☆☆☆☆☆
(0 stars)
It's been a while since I read Abandon, the first book in this afterlife para-romance vaguely based on the Hades/Persephone myth. At the time my library didn't have either of the next two books, and I was happy to move on from the series. While I actually gave Abandon a high rating (3 stars), that was mostly because Meg Cabot is a strong writer of teen contemporary, and I enjoyed her style enough that the troubling aspects of the romance weren't so bad.
That changes, hard left, in this book. For one, it's a slog to wade through, with almost nothing happening and a climax so poorly defined... well, I'm not sure it counts as a climax. Cabot had me feeling for the characters last time, and the strong voice of the narrator, but this book is absent of humor or heart. It is a heartless, boring story of false information, lying, unsubstantiated threats, and bewildering magic.
Perhaps the largest threat to the sanctity of my sanity (and this book having any redeeming factors) is the romance. I've read through quite a lot of bad romances in my time in the 2010s para-ro bubble, but John takes the cake of creeps. He displays in this book inhumane levels of skeevy, controlling behavior- from shouting to lying to manipulating Pierce into thinking she's in the wrong. This is textbook one of the most abusive relationships I've ever seen being treated like it's okay.
Plot?
Middle book slump ahoy! Yeah, there's not a plot in this book. Look, I can sum it up in two sentences: Pierce sees her cousin Alex will potentially be in danger in a magic vision, so her and John return to the living world to help. After surviving Fury attacks and Alex briefly dying, they return to the underworld.
That, honest, is it. Even if I squeeze out small supplementary details, there's very little learned or happening in this book. We learn John was a ship's captain, and meet some of his crew who work in the afterlife with him. We learn John accidentally killed his abusive father. The mean kids on the island have evil families involved in drug trafficking. Pierce and John have sex and it means Pierce can never age or live a normal life.
You might note even then most of those details are things we learn, rather than direct action. Pierce and John tussle with some Furies (the underworld demons who love chaos and harassing John), but that is it for any action in this book. Most of the supplementary in between time is Pierce and John disagreeing or having vague, unhappy conversations with each other.
The plot, it would appear, is just their relationship.
Holy Abusive Relationship, Pierce!
It was incredibly difficult for me to power through this book at the start especially due to how much focus there is on John and Pierce's romance- and how wrong that romance clearly is. Right off the bat is an encounter where Pierce eats food in the underworld. She's still human, and thus hungry, and according to the myth of Persephone, the goddess was only stuck because she ate a pomegranate. We can question her logic there, but she thinks it's perfectly safe to eat underworld food because John is the one who orders it to their room, and she loves/trusts John would be good to her.
After enjoying her breakfast, John lets her know eating any food in the underworld actually binds you there. While it doesn't mean she can never leave (as she freaks out and assumes), she will not age and be bound to him/this place forever. John states he 'thought she knew', which is quite a ridiculous thing to presume. For one, John and Pierce are never apart in this book. There's perhaps one ten minute window, after the food eating thing, but otherwise John is either in the same room or just around the corner. Him thinking Pierce just knows all the strange rules of the underworld is working on nothing.
But perhaps he means it to be from nothing. We later learn John was lying to Pierce there- food in the underworld means nothing! Yep, big first scene and fight and event of this book is a lie the boyfriend made up to try and control the main character. He even admits he didn't like how she was freaking out and having second thoughts about 'cohabiting' with him, since she hadn't 'even been there twenty four hours'. So he lied, to freak her out and think she would now be doomed to outlive her family, just so she'd stay put.
There's a similarly bad thing in the first food eating scene. When John tells Pierce she'll now live forever and be bound to this underworld, she freaks out and asks why he didn't tell her, since she'll now watch her mother grow old and die. He says she has to eat, since otherwise she'd starve, and Pierce states maybe she'd rather starve than risk never being able to see her mother/being forced to outlive her mother. John, at this, grows angry at Pierce: she has implied she'd rather die than be with him! His anger causes small earthquakes and thunder to rumble, bringing Pierce to apologize for something which is squarely his fault.
John uses thunder and shouting to scare Pierce and prompt her to apologize multiple times. It's a scare tactic to control her, and it kind of turns my stomach to see her submit and apologize to this guy. She takes things as her fault when they are always his. A good example is in some of the notes I took, approximations of actual quotes from the book, which shows how abusive this relationship is.
Pierce: i love you but i am not experienced with dating. I woke up in your arms last night in your bed and did not invite you there. I like you but we need to take physical relationship stuff slower, i am 17 and you are my 1st boyfriend. I am not ready to date physically
Love interest john: (ANGRY, MAKES THUNDER BOOM) how dare you think i slept in the bed with you. YOU called to ME in your nightmares HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE ME of not respecting you
MC: (COMPELLED TO APOLOGIZE) you are right... i am so sorry to offend you...
Love interest john: you clearly hate me. You hate being here. You regret coming here.
MC: no! I just want a slower pace to our relation-
John: Well you are stuck here with me forever. Idiot. I never told you but that breakfast i offered you earlier? Binds you here forever. Just thought you would assume that. So there
Then, shortly:
Him: if i told you this food would make you immortal, what, would you have not blindly ate it?
MC, a 17 yr old with a family and friends: YEAH
Him: you.... would rather die than be with me??!!! >:(
MC, emotionally trained to apologize whenever this jackass is angry: sorry didnt mean to hurt your feelings
Look at this incredibly unhealthy dynamic.
Pierce constantly apologizes for upsetting John's feelings and not thinking about his hardships, while he never spares a thought for what she is going through. She starts the book sure of her love for him, and doesn't really waver in this fact at any point, adding an uncomfortable layer to her: she appears to be almost brainwashed by John to forgive and love him, and is punished when she doesn't. To add another sinister layer, I'll remind you John met her when she was 6, and he's been following her around and watching her since she was 15.
Their bad bad relationship is put on hold for a while while the 'plot' happens, but towards the end they return to the underworld and it... gets worse. Pierce and John have sex. There's no build up to this, nothing about their middle book journey that suggests they've been getting closer and are ready for this step, but once they return to the Underworld they immediately decide to have sex.
As they are getting hot and heavy, John reminds Pierce she said she 'wanted to take things slow', but she says she's okay now (consent is good). However, he then says 'what about the consequences', and she assures him she isn't worried. Pierce believes he is referring to pregnancy (no condoms in the afterlife?), and Pierce recently learned in her one private conversation that she can't become pregnant in the Underworld. They then have sex. A bit after this, John reveals that sex is the real pomegranate- he was lying about the food thing, but having sex with him means she is now non-aging and stuck with him forever.
While this is obviously a miscommunication that John tried to check in about, I'd very much argue he did not try hard enough. The fruit situation returns: why would he assume Pierce knows anything about the rules of the afterlife he hasn't told her, since he's always been around her? When Pierce says yes to the consequences, he should have double checked. 'Which consequences, I think we really need to establish this, this is an irreversible thing'. He might have been lying about the fruit thing (as he reveals when he tells the sex thing), but he saw how upset Pierce was at the idea. Assuming Pierce totally knows and has come to terms with being immortal and stuck in the Underworld in the day since she was terrified due to fruit-curses is ridiculous.
In true John/Pierce fashion, their conversation on this subject involves John blaming Pierce, and Pierce accepting the blame and apologizing. For not knowing something as ridiculous as 'sex will trap you with me forever', which John totally knew.
To paraphrase the scene:
John: I love you Pierce. You're so good and make me want to be good. I was afraid (hence fruit thing) you would leave when you realized I'm not a very good person
Pierce: (tries to say something) (thinks she would never leave him and doesn't care he killed his own father)
John: You nearly died yesterday so I wanted to show you how I loved you, hence sex. It went further than I expected BUT YOU DIDN'T STOP ME EVEN THOUGH I /TOLD/ YOU WE COULD SLOW DOWN.
Pierce: You did..... You're right.... :(
John here leverages his basic good manners (checking if Pierce was ready for sex and wanted to slow down or not) as an excuse for why he had sex with her and doomed her to eternity with him, despite the fact she didn't know that was the consequence.
This is such an unhealthy, nasty relationship and sets all the wrong ideas out there.
Last book got a weirdly high rating- it was a quick read, and even fun at points. It succeeded on the slice of life content, the energy of family and friends that carried us past the "barely in the book but very creepy" love interest. This book is all about John, and he's the worst. There's no fun anymore. There's no quality writing shining through garbage tropes. It's just a bad YA book with a horrible relationship that is treated as an ideal.
Trust me, I'm the kind of person who likes a spooky scary underworld death deity boyfriend in theory, even a mysterious brooding type. YA, however, fails at this trope ten times out of ten: they forget things like consent, communication, and actually not being a horrible person. If I met John in an alley I would beat him with a baseball bat and take his place as a death deity. I would do a better job, and my first soul would be his (and he would be put on the boat to hell).
I loved this book! It was so great and I loved the progress made by the characters!
I really loved John and Pierce's relationship! Obviously they are sooooooo meant for each other! I loved the steamy moments between them and am hoping there'd be more in Awaken!!!
I loved the new characters! I loved Henry, Frank, Mr. Liu and Mr. Graves! They were like this awesome ragtag team on John's side! I really liked Mr. Smith too! That guy's like Pierce's grandfather; at least those are the vibes he gives off!
I loved Alex and Kayla too. I just wish that there'd been more of them in the story.
Overall, this was pretty great and I really liked it! I can't wait to read Awaken!!!! I'm dying to read the next book!!!
I really loved John and Pierce's relationship! Obviously they are sooooooo meant for each other! I loved the steamy moments between them and am hoping there'd be more in Awaken!!!
I loved the new characters! I loved Henry, Frank, Mr. Liu and Mr. Graves! They were like this awesome ragtag team on John's side! I really liked Mr. Smith too! That guy's like Pierce's grandfather; at least those are the vibes he gives off!
I loved Alex and Kayla too. I just wish that there'd been more of them in the story.
Overall, this was pretty great and I really liked it! I can't wait to read Awaken!!!! I'm dying to read the next book!!!
How can someone find this romantic?
A selfish girl wanting dick, risking her safety, no regard whatsoever for people's feelings. And an old guy, manipulate wanting to get laid. WTF. KIDNAP. MANIPULATION. AND PURE STUPIDITY!
A selfish girl wanting dick, risking her safety, no regard whatsoever for people's feelings. And an old guy, manipulate wanting to get laid. WTF. KIDNAP. MANIPULATION. AND PURE STUPIDITY!
Full review on Reader's Dialogue: http://readersdialogue.blogspot.com/2013/04/underworld.html
Amazing how all of the events in this book happen almost entirely in one day! Everything happens so quickly, moving from the Underworld to the cemetery, to Pierce's home, to the streets of Isla Huesos, and back to the Underworld... And on and on. The pace of Underworld is lightning-quick, with the wit and sass to match. The interactions between all the characters are so real, so vivid.
Pierce doesn't seem to be in danger as much in this book, except that she's being kept against her will and mistakes the Persephone legend to mean that she could eat anything besides pomegranates and won't be bound to the Underworld. That, of course, makes for a lot of tension between her and John as they try to figure out what eating the food in the Underworld actually means. But it's mostly Pierce's cousin who's in danger this time, and it's an added dimension that we see Pierce focused almost exclusively on saving her cousin.
Amazing how all of the events in this book happen almost entirely in one day! Everything happens so quickly, moving from the Underworld to the cemetery, to Pierce's home, to the streets of Isla Huesos, and back to the Underworld... And on and on. The pace of Underworld is lightning-quick, with the wit and sass to match. The interactions between all the characters are so real, so vivid.
Pierce doesn't seem to be in danger as much in this book, except that she's being kept against her will and mistakes the Persephone legend to mean that she could eat anything besides pomegranates and won't be bound to the Underworld. That, of course, makes for a lot of tension between her and John as they try to figure out what eating the food in the Underworld actually means. But it's mostly Pierce's cousin who's in danger this time, and it's an added dimension that we see Pierce focused almost exclusively on saving her cousin.