Abandon – Meg Cabot

I had heard many things for many years about Meg Cabot but I hadn’t read anything by her, despite loving the Princess Diaries movie, until Abandon. I’m so glad it was my first because it was a great introduction to a great author and now I can’t wait to read more by her! 

I loved the story and its likening to the Hades and Persephone myth. I didn’t know much about the myth before I started reading Abandon but I knew enough to understand that the book is based on it. Thankfully a lot of the myth was explained, not in great detail and not in an overly obvious way but enough and that helped with my enjoyment of the story a lot. I really enjoyed the writing and the way it flowed. I’m a fan of first person narratives and whilst Pierce was sometimes a little annoying I was really happy with the flow of the text and the vivid imagery it puts across however I did think there was a lot spoon-fed to the reader early on which was left to be explained later and that annoyed me a little bit. For example when talking about what happened to Pierce’s friend, her teacher, how she died and things like that, they were mentioned but they weren’t fully explained for ages and kept being mentioned so I was annoyed that I wasn’t getting the answers. But this made me really want to read on and find out what was going on so I didn’t mind once I found out the information. 

I liked the characters but I didn’t love them, they were interesting enough for me to enjoy them but I didn’t develop any great feelings for them. I think my favourites had to be Pierce’s mum and her Uncle Chris. Pierce herself annoyed me a little bit too much and John was just weird. I actually really liked Richard Smith though and thought the relationship he had with Pierces grandfather was a brilliant addition to the story. I think the characters will be a lot more developed in the second book so I’m really looking forward to that. 

As I just mentioned, Abandon is the first book in a series and you really can tell. It ends on quite a cliffhanger and there are a lot of unanswered questions which annoyed me a bit. Things stopped at a good place but I do think the wait to read book two will be a tough one! I didn’t love Abandon but I can see why other people would and I definitely enjoyed it enough to check out the rest of the series. If you are a reader that enjoys Greek Myth, this is a must read! 

Abandon was published in September 2011 by MacMillan Children’s books. My copy was sent in exchange for an honest review from the publisher. 

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