Ever

Gail Carson Levine
HarperCollins (2008)
ISBN 9780061229626
Reviewed by Neha Kashmiri (age 13) for Reader Views (6/08)


“Ever” by Gail Carson Levine is a fantasy love story about Kezi, from Hyte, and Olus, the Akkan god of winds. Kezi is a beautiful almost 16-year-old with talent for rug weaving and dancing.  Olus, in his travels of the mortal world, can’t help but fall in love with her. Olus is only 17 -- hundreds of years younger than all the other gods, and they all tell him that it’s useless to care for mortals, that they’re like soap bubbles. They’re there one moment and gone the next. But Olus doesn’t listen and pursues Kezi anyway.

But their love wasn’t meant to be. When her father makes a deadly oath, Kezi pays the price. Now her days are numbered and her fate set. Olus, unwilling to let Kezi die, reveals himself as a god, and offers her an immortal life.  Both, now, have to take the tests and trials of champions and heroes (and heroines in Kezi’s case).  Alone.  Can Olus and Kezi defy fate and create a new life for themselves?

To me, Olus and Kezi fall in love unrealistically and too quickly. I love Gail Carson’s other heroines but Kezi lacked depth and the story was over too fast for me to get to really get to know her. It was an okay book, I liked it while I was reading it but it made me feel slightly dazed when I finished it. The mythology was interesting and I liked the fact that it subtly questioned Kezi and her family for believing in the great and terrible Admat. It’s not a deep story but it makes you think -- I mean Kezi was going to be sacrificed over an oath a desperate husband had made. Not as good as “Ella Enchanted” and “Fairest,” but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. “Ever” is recommended to lovers of subtlety and the trials of lovers.

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