by Gail Carson Levine

Review by Claire Ramsey 

Gail Carson Levine’s next book from folk and fairy-lore will be released May of this year, and it has been a long wait for lovers of The Two Princesses of Bamarre or her first book Ella Enchanted. 

Nevertheless, there has been a book to sustain us in the wait, and it is Ever (published May 2008) – a wholly new fairytale which strikes me as fitting for young people growing up in an era of uncertainty.

    Ever, though set in the fantasy lands of Hyte and Akka, has a Middle-Eastern flavor: a good idea in our suspicious times.  The citizens of Hyte are weavers, goatherds, potters; the musicians play drums and rhythmic percussion instruments.  The families are close-knit, even insular, and they eat barley, figs, and dates.  The story is told in the first-person voices of Kezi of Hyte and Olus of Akka.  
    Olus is a god.  Akka is the land of gods, and Olus’ parents are Arduk and Hannu, gods of agriculture and earth/pottery, respectively.  Olus is god of the winds, and seems to know his winds like friends: his warming wind, his clever wind, his little wind that catches a dish he drops before it can smash on the floor.  Arduk and Hannu cannot understand Olus’ interest in mortals – the soap bubbles, as they call them.  One pop! and a mortal is gone forever.  Of course all of the Akkan gods have worshipers, but Olus wants something more.  He loves watching Kezi and her family and is helplessly determined to find a way to meet them even though his previous efforts with mortals have failed.
    Olus and Kezi do meet, of course; he posing as a human and she attributing the strange things she sees him do (like catching the plate with wind) to her belief that Olus is a masma, or sorcerer.  Kezi’s mother falls ill and then her father swears a terrible oath: if his wife recovers, he will sacrifice the first person to congratulate him in the temple of the Hyte god Admat.  Kezi’s mother recovers.  The oath is binding for three days only; if only no one will congratulate him for those three days, all will be well.  They do not count on, however, the stubbornness of Aunt Fedo.  To save her aunt’s life (as Fedo once saved hers), Kezi frantically congratulates her father and seals her own fate.  Olus and Kezi have thirty days to be together before she will be taken to the temple and killed, unless they can find a way out of the oath.

    Here there be spoilers…
    I am a fantasy reader, and even though I like fantasies of many different kinds and qualities, it is always a pleasure to discover a new idea or twist.  What makes Ever unique is that the people of Hyte, Kezi included, all believe in the omnipresent omniscient god Admat.  The parallels between Admat and early traditions of Yahweh/Christian God/Allah cannot be missed.  Admat knows and loves everyone, yet is never seen and sometimes demands the difficult or even the terrible and people will do it because they know he sees the big picture and they cannot.  Olus himself does not know the god Admat and seeks to find out if he is real: he asks the god of wisdom and the god of fate, and sends his winds in search, but comes up with nothing definite.  I found this one of the most charming parts of the story: a god who is himself hovering between belief and agnosticism. 
Will Kezi be sacrificed?  Will Olus seek a way to become mortal to live with her?  Will they find Admat?  The only way to find out, as ever, is to read Ever.