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Everwild (The Skinjacker Trilogy) |  | Author: Neal Shusterman
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $16.99
Buy New: $9.82
as of 3/21/2010 08:04 MDT details
You Save: $7.17 (42%)
New (19) Used (6) from $9.82
Seller: pbshop
Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 14636
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 432
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.5
ISBN: 1416958630
EAN: 9781416958635
ASIN: 1416958630
Publication Date: November 10, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9781416958635 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
There was the rumor of a beautiful sky witch, who soared across the heavens in a great silver balloon. And there were whispers of a terrible ogre made entirely of chocolate, who lured unsuspecting souls with that rich promising smell, only to cast them down a bottomless pit from which there was no return. Everlost, the limbo land of dead children, is at war. Nick the "Chocolate Ogre" wants to help the children of Everlost reach the light at the end of the tunnel. Mary Hightower, self-proclaimed queen of lost children and dangerous fanatic, is determined to keep Everlost's children trapped within its limbo for all eternity. Traveling in the memory of the Hindenburg, Mary is spreading her propaganda and attracting Afterlights to her cause at a frightening speed. Meanwhile, Allie the Outcast travels home to seek out her parents, along with Mikey, who was once the terrifying monster the McGill. Allie is tempted by the seductive thrill of skinjacking the living, until she learns a shocking secret: Those who skinjack are not actually dead. Critically acclaimed author Neal Shusterman writes a book about life, death, and how the choices we make define ourselves in this luminous sequel to Everlost, which Orson Scott Card called "marvelously inventive...and magically beautiful."
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
 Thoroughly enjoyable March 1, 2010
Doc Occula (Los Angeles, California)
I'm a big fan of Shusterman's 'The Schwa Was Here' and its snappy writing and sharp characters. I'll be honest; it took a little while to get into 'Everwild', in part because I haven't read 'Everlost', but more because the pace of the book was leisurely and a bit oblique. However, once I got past the somewhat overly expository elements - there's a lot of rules in the world of Everlost that need explaining - and got into the story, I became engaged; and by the time the plot ramped up into genuinely terrific storytelling, I was hooked. There are some really enchanting moments, some quite adult characters and situations and some careful plot acceleration so that at the climax, I was literally biting my nails; I wouldn't have thought this possible in a story about characters who can't technically die (always a tricky proposition)!
 Well-constructed, complex and good fantasy fun. February 25, 2010
A. Reid (NC, USA)
Add me to the numerous fans of this book, this series, and this imaginative author.
What we have here is YA fiction with plausible (if fantastic) scenarios designed to appeal to young teen readers but smart enough to also appeal to adults. We have realistic, three-dimensional characters (even if they can't remember their own backstories) who have plausible motivations...including a truly frightening villain who is monstrously misguided rather than malicious and a morally upright heroine whose very human desire to reconnect with her past leads her to do some bad things. This is not a simple morality play, with clear-cut villains and heroes; it's refreshing to encounter a YA book that can acknowledge that great evil can grow from good intent...and do it in a way that isn't remotely preachy. I'd stack it up for value next to any book in the literary canon for its audience, confident that its readers will be enriched by it, but also vastly entertained.
Certainly, I was. I'm well out of its target audience, but at one point in the action I simply did not want to put it down.
I love this book. It's a worthy sequel to _Everlost_, and it has certainly more than whetted my appetite for the finale.
Fresh, fantastic, enthralling, and well-written! February 25, 2010
John Nolley II (Fairfax, VA United States)
The follow-up to Shusterman's Everlost and the second book in his "Skinjacker trilogy," Everwild is quite simply one of the best juvenile novels I've read in a long time. I hadn't read the first book when offered Everwild, and though I could tell that this was indeed a sequel--particularly in the backstories of several characters (e.g. the McGill & Allie)--Everwild stood fairly well on its own. The story's a fast read which I finished in two or three sittings, never feeling I had to flip ahead or skim over any "slow" parts.
First, the basic premise (much of which is laid out by one of character Mary Hightower's homilies as an introduction to the book): Everlost is an ethereal netherworld, a kind of limbo populated by the spirits of deceased children, or "Afterlights." Afterlights don't age, don't hunger or need to breathe, and don't feel pain; they can see the shadows of the living world around them, but only a talented few can interact with the living: "skinjackers," who can possess living humans, and "ectorippers," who are able to rip matter from the living world into Everlost. (Normally, only those bits of well-loved or well-historied inert matter make their way to solidly occupy Everlost--think the Challenger space shuttle and the Hindenberg, for example.)
The plot opens in the middle of the struggle between prim and chipper (and annoyingly self-righteous) Mary Hightower and the Chocolate Ogre. Mary feels Everlost is the true paradise and that each Afterlight needs a task to keep him or her happy--amounting to eternal drudgery. Nick, the "ogre," wants merely to help each Afterlight take the coin he or she arrived with and pass on beyond into the proverbial bright light at the end of the tunnel and whatever true afterlife awaits them. Even having not read the first book, it's quickly evident that not everyone is as they seem: Nick's hardly a monster despite his appearance, whereas Mary goes well beyond mere eternal Pollyannaism and into sociopathy. This struggle takes the Afterlights deep into the "Everwild," or uncharted areas of Everlost, from Florida to the shores of the Mississippi where the story meets a cliffhanger of an ending in Graceland (a "nexus" which takes every Afterlight's nature to absurd extremes), and culminates with the first stages of Mary's shocking plan to bring more and more children directly to the "paradise" of Everlost (e.g. murder them) and keep them there for eternity.
The narrative does a good job balancing a cast of several different characters while playing out the plotline between Mary's and Nick's goals. Though at times I felt a bit left out from not having read the first book--clearly, Mary's brother Mikey "the McGill" has quite a backstory which is only hinted at in Everwild (having been a shape-changing monster before, apparently)--overall, the story in Everwild is self-contained enough to enjoy on its own. The end is a fair bit of a cliffhanger (which I don't want to spoil, other than to say Nick's plan to get Mary out of Everlost is short-lived at best, no pun intended), and the concluding volume is something I'm eagerly anticipating: how will Mikey (and the remade Nick) defeat Mary's murderous plans? Will Allie be able to overcome her skinjacking "addiction" and deal with her shocking discovery as to why skinjackers can possess the living and why that ability vanishes after their "natural" life span?
One complaint I have often had in reading and reviewing juvenile fiction today is that many authors (and their editors) seem to think that a younger audience permits them to get away with sloppy writing: too much telling-vs-showing, poor grammar, hackneyed dialogue, stiff characters, etc. I'm pleased to say that none of those apply to Everwild--and I can be a bit pedantic about such flubs in prose and plot.
Overall, I was quite simply overjoyed in reading Everwild. Shusterman pulls off an imaginative, unique take in his creation of the world of Everlost, with intriguing, engaging characters and a well-paced, well-plotted storyline.
A great second book in the trilogy. February 23, 2010
Steve chung (Brookfield, Wisconsin)
After reading the first Everlost book, I was very impressed. After finding out there was a second book, I was thrilled. The unfolding of the story was very different from what would normally be expected in a young adult, as was the first book of the trilogy. Every time I meet someone who has not read the trilogy and is looking for a book to read, this is the second choice behind the first book.
Wickeldy Enjoyable January 28, 2010
V. Canfield (San Antonio)
In Everwild, Neal Shusterman continues his dark and enjoyable adventures from where he left off in Everlost.
Everlost is a kind of limbo and home to children called Afterlights. These are children who have died, but somehow missed the tunnel and the light. As the "light" is never really explained, there is no overly religious connection. Adults do not become Afterlights, but important or much-loved objects and buildings sometimes do. There is no pain in Everlost so the worst thing that can happen is eternal boredom. One of the main characters, Mary Hightower, believes Everlost is a paradise and keeps the children remain in Everlost by giving them tasks which they become addicted to.
Nick - the Chocolate Ogre - wants to free the children of Everlost and so he roams Everlost with a bucket containing coins that provide passage into the light. Another character, Allie, is a skinjacker. She has the ability to possess the body of living human- thus the name skinjacker (like carjacker or hijacker). Allie's only desire is to find her family so she can reassure them she is fine and then she will move on. This can prove to be difficult as the Afterlights begin forgetting who they were and become what they remember. For instance, Nick is the Chocolate Ogre because his demise came when he was eating chocolate, so that is one of his last memories.
The first book is a must to read before tackling Everwild. At the end of Everwild Mary and Nick were in a stand-off, but since there was another book to come, many questions were left unanswered.. Everwild takes up where Everlost ended, where Nick and Mary gather armies of Afterlight for a battle as Allie continues to search for her family.
It was a wonderful read. The pace was fast and tense, with a good addition of humor and clever remarks. The characters were a wonderful mixture of magic and psychosis. Mary by outwards appearance is gentle and kind, but in reality is your typical evil genius. Think the Ice Queen when she is being kind in the Chronicles of Narnia. While Nick is a martyr, slowing losing himself until he may never find his way to the light.
The book goes along the classic theme of good vs. evil, but it does so brilliantly and with such an engrossing manner it was truly hard "to put down". The second book may actually be better than the first. You be the judge. But, reading Everlost before Everwild is a must.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
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