The Bookreport: The Everlasting By Alix E Harrow
Let me start off by saying that I had no intention of reading this book.
I saw the hype in a few places but ignored it because it didn’t seem my type of fantasy/romantasy.
SPOILER: I WAS WRONG. IT IS EXACTLY MY BRAND!
This blog post contains affiliate links. Everyday Eyecandy is a participant several affiliate advertising programs ( including but not limited to the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program) to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com and other websites listed below.
Synopsis of The Everlasting By Alix E Harrow
Sir Una Everlasting was Dominion’s greatest hero: the orphaned girl who became a knight, who died for queen and country. Her legend lives on in songs and stories, in children’s books and recruiting posters—but her life as it truly happened has been forgotten.
Centuries later, Owen Mallory—failed soldier, struggling scholar—falls in love with the tale of Una Everlasting. Her story takes him to war, to the archives—and then into the past itself. Una and Owen are tangled together in time, bound to retell the same story over and over again, no matter what it costs.
But that story always ends the same way. If they want to rewrite Una’s legend—if they want to tell a different story–they’ll have to rewrite history itself.
Category
Romantasy
Content Warnings
Death, Violence, War
What I Really Thought
“Was that not how you loved someone? By hammering your body into whatever shape they liked best, and handing yourself to them like a hilt?”
Listen. Anyone who talks about there is no yearning in romance anymore, I need them to read this book.
But let’s back up, because this is not just a romance. It’s the story of a weary knight and the scribe sent to write her story to help build a nation. It’s a fantastical Ground Hog Day sort of story with our two main characters and the villain aware, changing little things but never the tragic ending.
I went into this knowing very little. I saw the above quote on threads and picked it up based on that.
I thought I was getting a love story, but what I got instead, was not only a story of star crossed lovers, but one on yearning, fairytales, magic, how myths are made, commentary on propaganda, colonialism, empire making and more.
And even better, it was so unique.
Just an aside here: Romantasy, like romance as a genre , has gotten to be so formulaic these days that sometimes you can feel that you are literally reading the same book over and over with a different cover. But in The Everlasting, not only are our two main characters Owen and Una both unique in the world of fantasy ( no bulging muscles or petite beauty here) but it wasn’t formulaic, or full of tropes for the TikTok algorithm.
It didn’t have random sex scenes thrown in just so the spice could be rated.( even though listen, I will never not read a spicy scene or complain about one ) It wasn’t too long. It was the kind of book we expect romantasy to be: epic stories that have love as the main theme but also have a solid side or adjacent plot to move the story along.
Ok, I’m not going to use this review as a commentary on that ( see the podcast in the new year for that), but I will end by saying that I don’t want to say anything else but to tell you to read this now.
get your hands on it and read this book. Im jealous that you will get to read it for the first time.
My rating
5/5 Stars ( see my rating here)
