Book ReviewAbandon

First let me say, the description above, in my humble reader’s opinion, does not accurately reflect the main focus of the plot in Abandon. Huh, eh? It’s a first for me. So let me tell you what this book is truly focused on: Pierce has some ADD, some notoriety for being a rich man’s daughter and a lot of problems nobody knows about. For instance, the guy she might make her boyfriend? He rules the underworld. Hard to spiff that up and take it home to Mom and Dad! After drowning in the backyard pool, Pierce finds a way to escape from the cute boy named John, who lives ‘down under’ and finds a second chance at life. Not one to squander it, she immediately sets out to find answers – like why does her Grandma seem to purposely forget that day in the cemetery when Pierce’s grandfather was being buried and she first met John? Or why does John always seem to pop out of nowhere when Pierce is in the worst danger? And what do the changing colors mean on the necklace he gave her? Everyone thinks Pierce is crazy and she begins to wonder that herself until events converge all at once and Pierce is given more answers than she bargained for.
Okay, mine was way longer, but it gives the jist of the book I read. Nit picky jacket description aside, I gobbled this book up. I loved the pace, I loved the mystery and I loved the frustration of lines similar to “..if I’d known then what I know now, I would have stayed to help Uncle Chris instead of riding off to the cemetery.” Arrrgh!
This book is great at plot twists and turns and dips and dives. As for character development, I love how Meg never comes right out and tells us Pierce has ADD – we have to figure it out ourselves from how Pierce struggles with focus and how she analyzes every conversation to see if it went okay, internally wondering why or why not? The only reason this book dipped from my top rating of 5 was the chunky way it started.  And yes, I recognize after reading the whole book that Meg is writing much like her character thinks – in ultra-focused but seemingly random jumps in time.  First we’re given a glimps at the brief retelling of the myth of Persephone. Now we’re reading about Pierce at a party remembering how she previously died. Zoom face first into Pierce riding to the cemetery and thinking about her Grandfather’s funeral when she was 7. Insert John and a big fight nobody understands because she hasn’t told us his story yet.
The beginning chapters hurdle us through time and space without giving an inch of information or a quick timeline jotted down at the beginning of each flash change of circumstance. It is disorienting and I kept waiting for the chunk changes to stop and I’d finally be caught up in the game. That doesn’t happen for the first while so if, like me, you feel confused, just stick with it – believe me, it’s worth the ride once you understand it a little better!