Nevermore by Kelly Creagh is about Isobel Lanley a popular girl at her school. She doesn’t particularly like to turn in all of her assignments and when she is partnered with Varen Nethers, all the horrors of her English assignment have fallen on her shoulders. Varen Nethers is the quiet Goth kid that always sits in the back of the room and secludes himself from the world, hiding behind his dark curtain of long bangs. Varen does nothing to hide the fact that he would much rather not want to be doing the assignment with Isobel either.
Isobel must try to balance her friends and her project with one of the most rumored, yet unpopular guys in school. Her overprotective boyfriend, Brad, doesn’t help matters when he decides to bully and threaten Varen. Brad is very set on the idea that Varen is controlling Isobel in some way.
After some time Isobel finds herself looking for any excuse just to be with Varen. The more time Varen spends with her, the more she is ripped from her friends and boyfriend. The deeper Isobel gets into Varen’s life, the more danger she puts herself in. As she ventures through the pages of Varen’s notebook, she discovers the realm he has created where the terrifying stories of Edgar Allen Poe come to be reality. Isobel begins to have dreams about things that don’t seem to make any kind of sense to her.
Soon life itself becomes a struggle for Isobel as she realizes how fake her reality was. Finding new friends and trying to find love in the least expected person, Isobel will find the real person she is. Unexpectedly the project turns into a discovery of the real world of Edgar Allan Poe. Isobel will find out truths and lies throughout her adventure as well as love and friendship.
Creagh does a great job with the characters and storyline. It did seem like the story was drawing on too long, yet the book did not fail to keep my attention. The storyline is filled with mystery, anticipation, and the truth about the cruelty of friendships. Varen’s character is very well put together. Creagh shows his home life where he is psychologically abused by his father, and somewhat stranger than other Goths that Isobel encounters.
The character of Isobel is also very well portrayed as Creagh goes into detail with showing her readers how Isobel, the typical popular teenage girl, becomes one of the people outside of popularity. She tells how Isobel gets through her situations and drama with trying to recognize her real friends from her fake ones.
This story is well organized, understandable and relatable to an extent. I highly recommend this book to readers that enjoy a story with intense characters, mystery, some romance, drama and suspense.