Ellie, Everlasting by Isabel Scheck is a breezy fantasy read with great potential to entertain young readers. Ellie Parker has just experienced a devastating loss after a sudden tragedy. Apart from being separated from her family, she’s lost someone very dear; her partner, Olivia. But what seems to be a tragedy thrusts young Ellie into an adventure that changes everything she ever thought about fairyland. There is a world beyond the grave, a world for the lost boys and girls. But there is also a sinister darkness that threatens both Neverland and Earth and Ellie may have the key to save both worlds. Can she look into herself and accept a destiny as challenging as hers?

The narrative begins with a gripping prologue that introduces the theme of death and arouses the reader’s curiosity about a dramatic moment: “The girl in the mint-green dress was dead. Her once bright eyes were now vacant of their usual twinkle and the boy stared down at her in utter disbelief as he began to cry, the tears splashing on her once rosy cheeks.” It starts in the middle of something painful and the reader’s heart is touched deeply. We immediately get to know Olivia and Ellie and understand their friendship. Everything starts from here, where characters share a strong bond and Isabel Scheck makes that bond come out powerfully. Curiously, it is a bond that is more than physical and that exists even beyond the grave. The characters are lovely and real and I enjoyed how Ellie develops through the narrative. Ellie, Everlasting explores themes of love and friendship, family, life and death, and survival. It has a strong appeal to fans of fairy tales; it is crisply written and emotionally rich. You won’t finish it without occasionally shedding a tear for the characters.

If knowing that Ellie, Everlasting by Isabel Scheck showcases Neverland as a real place, you have an image of a fun and happy book, then you are very badly mistaken. Ellie, Everlasting goes very dark very soon. Yes, the plot revolves around Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, and other fairies, but it also revolves around Henry Hook, who establishes that no darkness is dark enough. The story begins with the murder of Ellie, an eighteen-year-old girl. She was a lively girl who was madly in love with her girlfriend, Olivia. When Ellie is murdered on earth, an investigation starts to find the murderer; meanwhile in Neverland, Ellie finds herself in front of all the people whom she assumed to be fictional ones, including Peter Pan. But something very dark is leaving no stone unturned in hurting the people of Neverland and earth alike.

The imagination of this author is extraordinary. The story moves flawlessly from one twist to another, leaving the reader awestruck with anticipation. Many characters kept making an entrance throughout the plot, but all of them entered with certain purposes. It was easy to understand the thoughts and perspectives of the leading characters because the author ensured that each emotion was given words. A certain darkness prevailed in all the chapters and the mood of the story was a bit gloomy, but the plot remained too intriguing for me to put down the book. My favorite character is Tinkerbell because of her fearless personality. She is a side character, yet her charismatic persona is too magnificent to ignore. I would recommend Ellie, Everlasting by Isabel Scheck to readers who love the combination of fantasy and action with a lot of suspense and a pinch of romance.

Ellie, Everlasting by Isabel Scheck is a fantasy/adventure story based on characters that many children have grown up reading and loving. Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, Hook, and the lost children are back and woven into an imaginative tale involving a teenager named Ellie Parker. Ellie and Olivia have been together for nine wonderful years until Olivia’s hateful brother, Owen, murders Ellie in a fit of rage, sending her off to another world, one that seems strangely familiar. Neverland. While Ellie is getting acquainted with Peter Pan as well as her new friends and surroundings, Olivia begins passing out and having nightmares about Henry Hook’s dark ravens. Sinister Henry Hook has had a personal vendetta against Peter, Wendy, and Tinkerbell for many years and is willing to do anything to make sure that his vengeance is finally fulfilled, even steamrolling over the innocent to do so. What will become of all of them? Turn the page and hold on for the ride!

Ellie, Everlasting by Isabel Scheck is a lively, whimsical creation full of colorful new characters, fairies, angels, pixie dust, Earth screens in which to view activities on Earth from Neverland, romance, and diabolical plots. The author’s imagination soars, giving the book a thrilling, can’t-wait-to-see-what-happens-next kind of energy. I really admired the strong world building and defined differences between the main characters, as well as the descriptiveness. The author does an excellent job of making sure readers know exactly what’s going on inside the story as well as the characters’ minds. Great job.

Ellie Everlasting is a young adult fantasy thriller written by Isabel Scheck. Ellie is an eighteen-year-old girl, who seems as normal as anybody you might meet in passing. She has teenage friends, and the regular teenage emotional ups and downs that life brings, but there is a difference between Ellie and the usual eighteen-year-old, which is the enormous secret that she carries. Ellie’s gigantic secret could cause a huge emotional disturbance to some of the closest people in her life, and to other people she holds dear, it would cause great relief. What is her secret? Will she ever reveal it, or will she try to hide it forever from those whom it has the greatest potential to hurt the most?

Ellie Everlasting is the most modern version of Peter Pan that I have ever read, with everything to please readers of today. From its fast paced and tear jerking moments, to its incredibly awesome and uplifting twists, this book has it all. From the very start until the very last sentence, this book was very well defined. In this story the characters' emotions are rightly driven by the different situations, which draw the reader in, and finally finish the book off with an endearing, but well-written happy ending. This makes the previously saddened reader feel like there is finally hope, making this a great, thought-provoking book to read. Since there were a few places that had strong language and graphic scenes, I would suggest a more mature reader.

It’s just another birthday party, but it’s being celebrated in a grand style. Lots of young people are in attendance. Ellie is there with her girlfriend, Olivia. It’s Olivia’s brother Owen’s twenty-first birthday. Ellie’s ten-year-old brother, Luke, wants to go, but he’s too young. He sneaks in to have a look at what all the fuss is about. That’s when he witnesses his sister’s murder. And then there are two stories, from both sides of the grave. The living bereaves the dead and the dead, Ellie, is in Neverland, with none other than Peter Pan, Tinkerbell and Captain Hook. There’s evil afoot in Neverland. Danger at every turn.

Isabel Sheck’s young adult novel, Ellie, Everlasting, has just about everything a young reader might be looking for in a good read: fantasy, romance (all types), murder, intrigue and so much more, as well as the real-life conflicts of sibling abuse and bullying. The story begins with the romance between Ellie and her girlfriend, Olivia. They attend the birthday party where tragedy lurks and the plot thickens before dividing into two. The main plot is, of course, Ellie’s. When she awakes from her death and finds herself Neverland and discovers Peter Pan and his connection to her friends in the world of the living, Ellie is as confused as the reader until the situation is clarified. The story is carried along primarily through dialogue. The characters are well described and there is some description of the setting. A lot of things happen as the plot thickens, on both sides of the grave, but often it’s left up to the reader to surmise the plausible explanations of how certain things came to be. An interesting read.

Have you ever wondered if fairy tales could possibly be true? Well, author Isabel Scheck clearly has and in her novel, Ellie Everlasting, she brings to life the story of Peter Pan and Neverland. When teenager Ellie Parker is brutally murdered by her girlfriend Olivia’s brother, Owen, everything changes for them. Ellie’s young brother sees the murder and is deeply traumatized by it. Apparently, though, Heaven is full and Ellie (a life-long fan of the Peter Pan story) finds herself waking up, not in Heaven, but in Neverland. All the usual suspects are there; Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, the evil Henry Hook, as well as all the lost girls and boys. For Ellie, her awakening in this magical place is more than just her personal fantasy come true. Clearly, something is amiss in both the real world and in Neverland and Ellie will be forced into a frantic race to save both before calamity strikes. Able to view the happenings on earth through the Earthly Observatorium, Ellie watches her loved ones as they are increasingly beset by danger and trauma. Despite Ellie’s earthly commitment to her girlfriend Olivia, she finds herself deeply drawn to and attracted to Peter Pan. Can Ellie love a boy in the same way that she so deeply loved her beloved Olivia?

Ellie Everlasting is a young adult novel that takes a different tack to most. The idea of combining a fairy tale with real-life action and adventure is a good one and author Isobel Scheck does a great job of pulling it all together. Her ability to get inside a teenager’s mind and portray their angst so well, along with her use of two young lesbian girls as the principal characters of the story, was innovative and what lifted this story above its competitors. I particularly liked the dimensions the author built around the character of Henry Hook, a deeply flawed individual but also one who suffered from those perennial problems of loneliness and rejection that went in some way to understanding his glaring imperfections and rage at the world in general. The writing is simple and straightforward and the story easy to read. I particularly enjoyed the complications of Ellie’s relationship with Peter Pan and Olivia’s burgeoning relationship with Evangeline. Both gave the story more focus than your average young adult novel. This was an enjoyable and satisfying read and one I can recommend.