Recent Reads: Abandon Trilogy

I picked up ABANDON, by Meg Cabot, at the bookstore a couple months ago, and it ws the nearest handy book a few nights ago, so I foolishly started reading it at 9:30pm.

I was brave, and managed to not read more than about six chapters past the one (ortwoorthree) I’d intended to when I picked it up.

The Abandon Trilogy is a modern-day Persephone story, with quite a lot of clever interpretation of myth. Our heroine has had a near death experience and came out of it messed up not only in the usual ways but also having met (fallen for) the highly attractive youthful death deity and seen a bit of the Underworld. Her family doesn’t believe her, her life falls apart, she gets in trouble…and Death comes riding to the rescue. In disasterous ways.

It’s good stuff. Nobody in the book has a particularly easy life, with the main characters all dealing with serious loss or other issues, all of which is handled not only well but often powerfully. There’s one character in particular I absolutely love–the best friend–who is just … *good*. She’s a good person, and she makes good choices for people she doesn’t like because it’s the right thing to do, and I found her a very effective and affecting character.

There is also a thing about her which is nominally explained in the books but which I found the explanation for to be…well, wrong. Insufficient. Lacking. Not consistent with other characters in the same position. So I’d actually really like a story about her, to clear it up. I prolly won’t get it, but I’d like one. :)

Another character who seems at especially loose ends all the wya through the series, and whom I kept expecting to have Something Happen With, paid off in those regards. I’d like to see more story there, too, in fact. Another book or series starring those two! :)

The bad guys are–to great effect–not who we expect them to be (well, some are, but not others), and, pleasantly, both the hero and heroine go through a visible growth arc. Actually, nearly everyone does, which is just good storytelling. Yeah. So I enjoyed these. Worth reading!