Abandon

Abandon, by Meg Cabot.

I'd known from the fact that I hadn't been able to keep away from the cemetery that I was drawn to him.

But I'd been telling myself it had just been because of the unfinished business between us. And the fact that he kept going around trying to kill people on my behalf. How could I ever have anticipated what I'd heard in Richard Smith's office? Or this ... the immediate chemical reaction that seemed to occur when our lips met? My mouth was still tingling.

What did any of it mean? Where could it go? He was a death deity. I was a senior in high school.

This was never going to work.

I was surprised that this book was written by Meg Cabot (she of the Princess Diaries series and others) but it is one of the best (kind of) sci-fi books I have read recently. It's loosely based on the myth of Persephone and Hades, and it is part one of an Underworld trilogy; on Cabot's website, it says the second book, Underworld, will be out next summer (summer 2012). I can't wait until then!

Pierce meets John when she is 7, when she is in the cemetery after her grandfather's funeral. He brings a dead bird back to life. She meets him again when she dies at age 15 ... and then two years later, at 17, very much alive. He is not Hades, but something similar, and he "works" in the Underworld that is located underneath Isla Huesos, helping people to their respective afterlives (heaven or hell). Pierce is attracted to him, though, and even more so when she meets him again at 17; he has saved her life a few times since she was 15 as well, which even makes him more attractive.

This book was really interesting and the next in the series will hopefully be just as good. You can hear Cabot's "voice" (similar to that of Mia's in Princess Diaries) in Pierce, and she proves to be a compelling character. I found a lot of similarities in Pierce and John's relationship to that of Edward's and Bella's in the Twilight series, most of all being that they are two completely different creatures - one a human, another something else - but they still fall for each other, and Edward (in this case, John) is always there to protect her when she needs protecting.

5 stars out of 5.