Meg Cabot

1-800-Where-R-You — (2001-2007) Young adult. This series has been published under the names Jenny Carroll and Meg Cabot. Publisher: When lightning strikes there can only be trouble — as Jessica Mastriani finds out when she and best friend Ruth get caught in a thunderstorm. Not that Jess has ever really avoided trouble before. Instead of cheerleading there are fistfights with the football team and month-long stints in detention — not that detention doesn't have its good points — like sitting next to Rob — the cutest senior around! But this is trouble with a capital T — this trouble is serious. Because somehow, on that long walk home in the thunderstorm, Jess acquired a newfound talent. An amazing power that can be used for good... or for evil.

Abandon — (2011- ) Young adult. Publisher: New from #1 New York Times bestselling author Meg Cabot, a dark, fantastical story about this world... and the underworld. Though she tries returning to the life she knew before the accident, Pierce can't help but feel at once a part of this world, and apart from it. Yet she's never alone... because someone is always watching her. Escape from the realm of the dead is impossible when someone there wants you back. But now she's moved to a new town. Maybe at her new school, she can start fresh. Maybe she can stop feeling so afraid. Only she can't. Because even here, he finds her. That's how desperately he wants her back. She knows he's no guardian angel, and his dark world isn't exactly heaven, yet she can't stay away... especially since he always appears when she least expects it, but exactly when she needs him most. But if she lets herself fall any further, she may just find herself back in the one place she most fears: the Underworld.

Abandon

For much of her life, Pierce has been haunted by a mysterious young man. She first met him when she was a little girl, but was told he was a figment of her imagination. When she was fifteen, she had a near-death experience and met him again in a strange landscape. Several times since, when she was threatened, the man appeared and put the threatening party in a world of hurt. Now, Pierce and her mother have moved to Isla Huesos, Florida — Mom’s hometown — for a fresh start. Thus begins Abandon, Meg Cabot’s adaptation of the Hades/Persephone myth and the first in a projected trilogy.

I love the Hades/Persephone myth, but unfortunately I found this retelling a disappointment. One major reason is the pacing. Pierce spends much of the narrative jumping back and forth between the present and the aforementioned events of her past. I’ve seen this technique work, but here it’s frustrating, perhaps because so very little is happening in the present-day storyline. I wanted fewer flashbacks and more going on in Pierce’s present — or else I wanted more material about her earlier life. I’d have relished a big, thick, meaty book that followed her closely for many years. An added bonus of that approach is that Cabot would have had to flesh Pierce out more so that she could carry a long saga of a book.

Which brings me to the other major problem with Abandon, which is Pierce herself. Note that the girl on the cover appears to be asleep. This is all too accurate. Pierce frequently compares herself to Snow White: she tells us she’s as rich and pretty and tender-hearted as a princess, and that after her near-death experience, she went into a metaphorical glass coffin and drifted aimlessly through her days. Trouble is, Pierce is still in that glass coffin. She has little in the way of initiative or curiosity. Much of the book consists of Pierce being maneuvered around town by various characters and having information unloaded upon her. About the only thing she does on her own initiative is try to push her cousin and her new friend into eating with some bullies (she doesn’t know they’re bullies yet, but she has reason to suspect). As for curiosity, I’d have been vastly happier with Abandon if Pierce had spent more time looking into mythology and Isla Huesos history for herself instead of having to be told everything in one long expository scene.

For me, the setting of Isla Huesos was the most interesting aspect of the story. Isla Huesos (“bone island”) is based on the real-life Key West, which the Spanish called Cayo Hueso (“bone key”). I enjoyed the bits of history, the way Cabot worked the Coffin Night tradition into the plot, and the way hurricanes and the recent Gulf oil spill are shown as integral parts of the island’s life. Abandon piqued my curiosity about Key West history, which I looked up on the internet after reading. [SPOILER HERE, HIGHLIGHT THE TEXT IF YOU WANT TO READ IT:] I was also intrigued by the tassels as a symbol of the evil Furies. It made me wonder. My best guess is that the tassels are shrunk-down cats-o’-nine-tails. [END SPOILER]

Abandon ends on a cliffhanger but without much having happened (at least in the present timeline) to lead up to it. I don’t think I’ll continue on to the next book. —Kelly Lasiter