A review by kevinscorner
Evergreen by Devin Greenlee

slow-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

Evergreen is a queer urban fantasy romance following a half-dryad teenage boy. Quill lives a sheltered life as the first of his kind male dryad, quietly working in his mom’s secret garden full of magical plants. All he wants is to be more than what his mom has planned for him and set out into the normal world when he meets his new neighbor. Liam is the normal teenager Quill aspires to be and helps him experience the mundane world of gadgets, movies, and friends and the possibility of more than just friendship. But just as Quill starts breaking free, the plants in his family’s care starts dying and something sinister is emerging.

I actually really enjoyed this book. It chronicles the tender exploration of friendship and romance between teenage boys—one of whom just happens to be from the magical world. From simple texts to seeing movies in the cinema to driving around town all night, their relationship was sweet and heartfelt. It was a very quintessential teen romance for the first three quarters of the book that I thoroughly liked and enjoyed.

The book does take a rather abrupt turn in the last quarter that does feel like it came out of nowhere involving the secret garden and what is going on there. I think there needed to be more hints and more obvious foreshadowing so that it wouldn’t feel so sudden. There was certainly more to explore from this storyline, but the conflict is resolved fairly quickly so it didn’t have as much depth and emotional impact as I would have liked.

Evergreen delivers more on the tender gay romance over its more fantastical story elements.