I cuss alot. I'm sorry. It's nothing personal. it's just how I am. Also, I don't know if i will be able to edit this review, but everything is done in HTML attributes in terms of italicizing, emboldening, and underlining. They're absolutely necessary for emphasis. Thanks!


1.5/5 stars.
It was like kombucha girl the whole way through except I finally said no and gave up. I have such a headache. I had 135 annotations within the first 10 chapters. It's a joke to say this book is about depression or any type of mental health awareness or recovery. I barely made it through. Genuinely half the crap said, were things that people with knowledge of depression/suicide/recovery will never dare say because it's hurtful and we have heard it before from people we trusted and needed to help us. They throw it back in our faces. Everything I have ever heard said to me about my being depressed and suicidal, how I'm faking it, how I'm doing it for attention, how I choose to be this way, I just need to do exercise, was all here in some shape, form, or way. As someone who has been severely clinically depressed for a long time, this book was insulting. Secondly, trigger warnings are necessary and so is proper research when dealing with something like a suicide attempt.




<u><b>A General All Around View on my thoughts:</b></u>

- <b>A Quick Summary:</b> The book follows Beverly, a shy 'outcast' and unpopular girl who befriends Everest, formerly known as the king of his school and essentially is perfect, one day while in 'her spot' in the old library, just after Everest had returned to school after a failed suicide attempt. Everest is deemed something like an untouchable by the rest of the student body because of his attempt ad is ridiculed over it. He loses his friends and basically that’s about it and him having fame at the end, but I’m guessing was added to make the story longer lmfao

- THERE NEEDS TO BE A TRIGGER WARNING.

- Was the whole thing about her being black necessary?

- There was so little empathy and care for the topics at hand, it was hurtful. The lack of research and inability to portray the themes correctly ruined anything the book had that could have made it redeemable, which was next to nothing as was. You're led to believe this is a teen fiction story that portrays teen depression and suicide and maybe recovery as a central theme and main plot point, but the reality is just that the author wanted it to be deeper than it was or somehow more than two kids falling in love. Beverly basically tells Everest that he just needs to be happy on more than one occasion, which anyone with mental illness knows how much it hurts to hear that from anyone. It's like being told I chose to be this way. I was going to finish this book. I really was going to, but I gave up. I made it to page 84 before I literally just could not do it anymore. I read the ending, skimmed the rest of it and got what I needed with the first few chapters.

- The writing sucked so much it was laughable.

- It needed to be outlined. Desperately. It was an entire scatterbrained fuck up with no real plot other than these two getting to know each other, which is fine, write a teen fiction romance, but don’t you fucking dare try to market as anything else and don't you dare try to claim it's positivity on mental health when it is clearly not that. Depression, suicide, recovery, his best friend being gay, it’s all less than a subplot. It’s just there to be there. The depression/suicide literally only acts as a device to bring them together.

-Sis, really did it and went in on the Im NoT lIkE oThEr GirlS and pretty much exposed herself for hating women when she was describing the assistant that Everests dad is having an affair with. Apparently she <i>dressed like she was trying to satisfy every man's wet dream</i> and had <i>more boobs than brains.</i> p.11 Seriously, fuck off.

- Multiple contradictories as if the author forgot what she was writing or didn't remember what she wrote. Half sleeves are very very hard to be mistaken for singular tattoo m'am.

- There is a scene where Everest's naming colors and then he says something about them. I thought it was nice. It was well written and poetic in a way.

- The confessions from his Uncles journal he describes as gorging himself on which is weird because it's shit like, "Don;t like my wifes cooking." I dunno, would've been different had he been the Zodiac Killer then maybe I'd believe his confessions were just that interesting.




<b>The Representation of Depression/Suicide and lack of research</b>

- I said it already, Imma say it again, Everest's depression/sucide is done out of convenience and acts only as a way to bring him and Beverly together. That's it.

- There does not exist a real, believable representation of what depression and suicide are. This is someone who <i>thinks</i> they know what depression is like. It's fake and shallow and lacked real research or knowledge of the topic. The first read flag came when, yeah, you guessed it, little bitch Bev said #positivityisallyouneed.

- Her entire take on depression is <i><b>You just have to be happy. You need to think positive.</b></i>. It's very dismissive and we see it the behaviors exhibited, thoughts, and things said.

- The reason the whole thing falls flat is because the author never makes even a slight attempt for Everest to get better. Instead he is deemed 'reckless' by Beverly and is told he needs to stop being so, and that he just needs to be positive. There is no doctors’ visits, no making a point that he is taking medications or seeing someone for his depression, which is stated more than once that he still has and is still suffering. Nothing. Just, tHiNk PoSiTivE.

- There's this thing where Everest is constantly referred to as psychotic, crazy, a nutcase, etc. Like, he's sad. Not Norman Bates. It's fucking disgusting. Shut the fuck up. Please. Just stop. It's enough.

Receipts // The ignorance jumping out
- <i>"...'I'm fine.' I assured her as the depression zoomed, bolted, and leaped through my veins, begging to be cut and released..."</i> p. 61 I contemplated just leaving this quote as the entire review just to highlight what a joke it is to claim this book is something about mental health awareness.

- <i>"...He talked a lot of game for someone who didn't even want to continue with his life..."</i> How fucking dare you claim you care about someone and throw this back at them. It goes to show a lot about a person. This is throwing someones mental health back in their face and it's shitty.

- <i>"...You don't want to die. You just need to figure out how to start living..."</i> Not how that works. Please, go see a therapist. Please get some anti depressants. Talking does wonders.

-<i>"..."I want to die," I told her, straightening my back..."No, you don't." She spoke with confidence and assurance. "Tell me this: Why haven't you tried again? If you really wanted to die, then you would have done anything to get the deed done"..." p. 63</i> I-just because someone is suicidal does not mean they are always actively looking for ways to commit suicide...

- <i>"..."You've been sad for too long. I wanted to do something and show you that it's okay to be happy..."</i> p. 74. Fuck you. ItS oKaY tO bE hApPy. Anyone with a real understanding of depression and suicide would never even think to say this.




<b>The Writing</B>

- The writing itself mostly just sucks. There are so many awkward sentences, paragraphs, scenes and descriptions that either needed to be rewritten entirely, a simple rearranging of words, or even just all around, unnecessary to include. All around, it read like it was not edited or they went through and did edit it and eventually said fuck it. Like we did what we could. We got what we got.

- There is an attempt to be deep, poetic, flowery with the use of metaphors and similes, but it doesn't work. It's easily undermined by some awkward sentence structure or something else said later on. It is super cringey to hear.

- Repeatedly was told something and then shown.

- Lot's of overly descriptive words.

- A lot of switching between passive and active voices, sometimes mid sentence.

<i>"...Happiness wasn't meant for people like me, because it would always crash and burn. Fire. Ashes. Smoke..."</i>

- <i> "...my thoughts were clawing at my skin from the inside out..."</i>

- <i>"...He wore a beanie today and I thought it looked really nice..."</i> Bruhhh, I'm telling you I died. This one sent me. I thought that was so funny. Christ.

-<i>...wetness invaded my cheeks...</i> p. 10 Not even one line down he proceeds to say, <i>"...her tears rolled down my cheeks..."</i> like you don't say

- <i>...hearing a deep voice inside a badly lit library...</i>

-<i>...Everest the boy who tried to kill himself; the boy with sad eyes...</i>

- <i>...mist of disappointment...</i>

-<i>...It was hard to miss something that you didn't remember. It was even harder missing something you did remember...</i> You had me and then you didn't.

-<i>...My thoughts were too big to fit in my twin bed...</i> oh, ok.





<b>Laughable shit // This does tie in with writing </b>

-I don't know if it's an attempt at feigned naivety but she uses joint, blunt and cigarette interchangeably. A blunt can never be mistaken for either a joint or cigarette.

- An attempt to I think garner pity for Everest or shallowly show he is depressed, he turns to drugs. Everest goes to a place called the Basement where basically the druggies and "lowlifes," as he so eloquently puts it, hang out and for some reason, while there he does weed and alcohol because being cross faded is amazing you know, and our boy gets a half sleeve in a matter of hours??? Firstly, why would you trust a druggie to do your tat? Secondly, why let some random ass chick who is high dye your hair? Where did this dye come from?

- Our boy gets high and I shit you not tries to eat a taco but misses his mouth? I want to know what drugs he is on. I want some. I just know he couldn't walk. Have you ever been so high you couldn't walk? Angel dust and DMT and cocaine all in a bottle of tequila is what that sounds like.

- Beverly asks when the last time he was truly happy, which ?? I can confidently say if he has been depressed this long he surely doesn't remember because his memory is fucked, and replies when he was 10 at his Grandma's house. It's weird.

- <i>...You should masturbate with a knife sometime...</i> what an odd thing to say. I appreciate the attempt to be witty.

-<i>...smoking object...</i> Fuck you.

- they smoke a whole ass blunt at school. I--I'm from Colorado my man. I can't. I really can't with this one.




<b>Characters</b>
- You usually decide within the first ten seconds of meeting someone if you like them or not. This applies to characters as well. Within the first few pages or chapters they are on the page you are going to decide if you like them and I don't like these two. Even as I got further into the book.

- Their backgrounds were nicely written actually and gave me a good picture of who they were in terms of how they grew up and how that contributed to who they are, but I don't see much personality in either one.

- Beverly is an annoying insufferable ignorant headass, who if I could get my hands around her throat, I would. She continuously describes herself as unpopular, unnoticeable--despite being only one of two black girls in all white school and in her words, <i>...made me stick out like a sore thumb...</i> p.3 --having no friends and is a loner who doesn't even like sitting in the cafeteria.
<i>...although nobody talked to me, I still valued their company. I could deal with solitude, but I didn't prefer it.</i> First off, bitch, join a club. It's not that deep. You don't have friends because you don't bother to make any.

-Everest, seems like a decent kid. Former king of the school. A little slut shamey and judgey. I honestly, can't remember his personality too well.




<u>Everest's Suicide Attempt</u> (because I want to highlight how shitty this was shown and how bad research actually was, which yes, you do need in a book like this.

A little information beforehand: I have been depressed for a long time. It's genetic, I can't really help it. I take meds and I have attempted suicide more than once. I have been admitted to psych maybe fourish times. Two were attempts, the other visits were resulted from comments I made to nurses and any other people who needed to handle me. So, everything I'm about to say is generalized in a way and based entirely on if someone is doing their job correctly. I'm doing my best to apply what I know/experienced, what I've heard, and my own research and applying it to Everest's situation.

- After Everest's failed attempt, he spends <b>five days</b> in the hospital with his father visiting him twice and ignoring him, his little sister never coming to visit ever, and his mother calling him crazy and telling everyone he needs to be locked up. In his five days, Everest, who is considered a child, <b>refuses to talk with his shrink</b>. So, this is all very crucial, Everest is a minor who spends five days in the hospital after a suicide attempt refusing to talk to his shrink. All it takes is googling how a suicide is handled to know right off the bat that this will not fly. Let's break it down:

<b>a.)</b> Suicide is a very very very big deal and about 90% of the time it will be handled as such. Entirely dependent of the situation and what needs to be done, they might let you go hours afterwards and not even send you home with a recommendation for a therapists or an anti-depressant. Someone could vehemently deny they were trying to kill themselves, and maybe the doctors or nurses will buy it, and let them go. I know people who have accidentally overdosed on prescription and/or over-the-counter meds and ended up being admitted. Like I said, every situation varies, but normally protocol is a 72 hour lock down in psych, and/or then you might get a 2 week stay in a mental institution. Whether or not you get to go home after the 72 hours or even do the 72, is up to and how you want to behave. You’re on eggshells.
<b>b.)</b> <b>Everest is a minor, a child</b>. Everest would have been sent to a children's hospital with a ward for such circumstances and Child services <i>will</i>be called. This is serious. A child has made an attempt on their life, people will have questions about the home life. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean they will for certain interact with the party. They could just observe. His parents’ actions spoke words. The nurses are watching you like a hawk. They will make it known to doctors and social workers if either party is displaying behavior that calls for even more concern. Normally, his parents would have been questioned by social services, either because of the suicide attempt to begin with especially seeing how popular he was in his community or because of the appearance of neglectful behavior.
In addition to this, Everest's parents brought him home, which isn't entirely rare, but circumstances would have made it entirely unlikely. He wasn't willing to comply with talking to the someone and his parent’s behavior was concerning, they would not have let them do this.
<b>c.)</b> <b>Participation is not an option. You must participate and you <i>will</i> comply, either on your own or by force.</b> As we know, he spent five days refusing to comply with speaking to a therapist which is not something you can usually do. You have attempted suicide.

- 72 hours isn't fun, btw. Those 2 weeks at the hospital, maybe.

One last thing, someone who does not want to get better, is not going to get better. It took a long time for me to want to get better and it's never done for someone else. Going to therapy, taking medications, wanting to be better. Fighting to be better. Nobody gets better for someone else. We do it because we want to be better. Depression is not sadness. It is being hopeless and numb. Depression is a fucking battle. Suicide is done as a last resort, because someone doesn't have a reason to stay, because they're tired and exhausted, because they can't see a way out, because they don't believe they will ever get better.

I ran out of characters on Goodreads but

Suicide hotline: 1-800-273-8255

Crisis Text Line: 741741

Drug Abuse National hotline: 1-800-662-4357

Trevor Lifeline: 1-866-488-7386

Sky Chase is brand new to publishing a book with her debut novel, but the description of her book Saving Everest had me interested from the get go. A novel about an interracial relationship that builds into more after someone has hit rock bottom.

I love hard hitting books about topics only some authors want to talk about. Saving Everest was one of those books. It starts right off dealing with a suicide attempt by the most popular kid in school and then moved on to the depression and issues that come after a failed suicide attempt. This story was one of survival and coming of age. I loved how Chase wrote characters who were relateable, from two different socioeconomic backgrounds, and with different interests. The story flowed smooth and Everest’s recovery followed a believable timeline. The characters were likeable and a lot of what they were going through reminded me of my own teen angst issues.

While I loved a majority of the book, there was one part that did bother me. The ending came on fast. The last two to three chapters seemed like they crammed a bunch of BIG decisions into small spots and then tried to wrap it up in the last chapter very quickly and kind of on a cliffhanger. I felt like the timing of the rest of the book was so good and then the end was rushed, which left me feeling short changed and disappointed. I’d have liked that information spread out over a few more chapters at least.

Aside from that I did thoroughly enjoy this story. I felt a lot of emotions while reading and sometimes that is hard to do for me. I look forward to Sky Chase releasing her second book and will be picking it up. Everyone should read Saving Everest if they love a good hard hitting, tear jerking, coming of age story.

This book was a quick read. Hard topics and I felt like it was a little bit to easy. The topics were super real but then it seemed like the main character only pulled himself together because of someone else and I felt like that seemed dangerous. The book was easy to read the writing was a little hard to follow, it didn't flow very nicely.

I received this book in exchange for my honest review.

Before i get into my review, this could have just been the mood that i was in when i had read it, that being said. This book wasn't as good as I thought that it was going to be. The synopsis made it sound more interesting than it actually was.

There was a lot of moments that could have been improved imo.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wattpad Books for the advance reader copy of Saving Everest by Sky Chase, in exchange for an honest review. I could not put this book down, debut author, Sky Chase has written a great, diverse YA romance. The story of Everest Finley, popular, gifted and athletic, who silently suffers from depression and tries to end his life was crushing. Everest really has no strong family support; when he returns to school he is scorned by his girlfriend, best friend, and team members. Retreating to the library, he meets Beverly, a quiet, shy, but happy girl who pledges her friendship and support. Both Bev and Everest are strong likable characters teens will relate to and love as Bev and Everest become best friends, challenging themselves to become better for each other. I fell in love with Everest’s voice, his honest music, and his fearlessness. While Bev was a strong positive influence for Everest, he challenged her to go outside her comfort zone, become visible, and experience what high school is all about. Together can they both find their true selves? Bev and Everest are smart, confused, of- the-moment teens who are just trying to understand life, love, and their place in the world. The drama and action move this story of friendship and romance forward to a satisfying conclusion. I would love to see another book from Sky Chase following Everest and Bev after high school! One reason for the 4-star rating; I did feel Everest would have benefited from follow-up help from a therapist for his suicide attempt and continuing depression. This debut accurately and honestly deals with teen mental health, family issues, and high school life; highly recommended!

This book really disappointed me. It had such potential to be a powerful story. But it felt rushed and like the author was trying much too hard to make an impact. The story needs a little polishing and it could use more character development. Definitely not a favorite of mine.

This probably a case of it’s me and not the book, but I can’t couldn’t finish this one. I can understand the topics that the author tried to cover but the execution was not great. The writing was choppy and the characters came off shallow and one dimensional.

I also feel like the topic of suicide could have been handled so much better. It was basically used as a plot point to make everything start off instead of actually seeming to care about Everest.

This isn’t a hateful one star review, more so just a ‘this book really wasn’t for me’ one star kind of review. Netgalley really got me with that cover. And I really hate to say it, but the content inside didn’t feel reflective of the beautiful cover. I felt that Saving Everest had confusing characterizations, no real point of contention and was just juvenile in it’s execution.

I think the nicest thing I have to say about this book is that it reads like a good fan-fiction story would, fast-paced and accessible. Seriously, I am by no means a reader that starts a book and finishes it in a sitting, but I pretty much did so with this book. (Which is no surprise, as Wattpad is publishing this book.)

Despite that praise, I also think this book read a lot like some of the bad FF I used to read. I lived and breathed FF in my late teens, so I’m not stranger to it. I felt that Saving Everest wasn’t anything special or new, which I would largely pin down to the amateurish writing style.

There is also something that feels very dated about this story. Literally every character in Everest’s life – his parents and popular friends, want nothing to do with him after finding out about his suicide. And… I just don’t believe that in 2019? I’m sure there ARE people who treat people with mental health issues as ‘crazy’ or ‘weird’… but everyone in your life? Like even his own therapist seemed disinterested in his recovery.

Worse so, Everest’s suicide merely feels like a catalyst for Everest and Beverly to become friends. Upon finding out about Everest’s suicide attempt, he is isolated by his friend group and the rest of the school… except by the school’s loner – Beverly, who has basically been harbouring a crush on him for a while.

At the point in which the two MC’s become friends (which is in the beginning of the story), there is little to basically no discussions surrounding mental health for the rest of the story? Which is strange because the blurb positions this book as being ‘poignant’ and uh, I think it really missed the mark.

What this book really is – is a slice of life teen romance. At least that’s what it felt like to me. Whilst I’m sure the authors motive to advocate about mental health is legitimate, unfortunately this story wasn’t successful in doing so.

I was hesitant about requesting Saving Everest. Sometimes I look forward to dark stories that can move me emotionally, and sometimes they just end up draining me. In the case of Saving Everest, I did begin to wonder if the depression that Everest was suffering from was too much for my personal "read for fun" time. I mean his depression was bad enough to cause him to attempt suicide. But thankfully the story didn't stay here too long.

I will say before moving on from that too much that we do see some of the things Everest was struggling with. His father is domineering, unsupportive, and harsh. His mother seems uninvolved or uninterested. He has friends and a girlfriend but I suppose we learn that they're not true friends. And he plays football, but I never really figured out if he hated football, the attention it brought him, or the pressure he felt to perform. So I found myself questioning how things got so bad for him to consider ending his own life. But maybe that was the point of it all? You're not really supposed to understand depression because it isn't always logical.

It was a little hard for me to believe that Everest is completely surrounded by people who are so cold and callous. That ranging from close family to supposed friends to random strangers to teachers could all be very cold toward him and the things that he was struggling with. Again, thankfully the book didn't stay stuck in this place for too terribly long. But I did have to question that there weren't more people with softer hearts.

Beverly was a breath of fresh air. She breathed life into the book just as much as she breathed life into Everest. I worried that things would be too literal with the title and Beverly single-handedly saving Everest from his depression. It's never a great idea to bank your entire happiness upon another person as that person could be taken from you at any time. And while Beverly does change things for Everest, I don't think the credit is only hers.

I was a little confused as to how Nami could be popular enough socially to be student body president when she seemed to be so abrasive to so many people. Of course, I came to really enjoy her character.

Saving Everest had moments that felt like continuity errors to me. Some I've already mentioned. Also, Everest complained at one point about the pressure to perform with football and how he'd come to hate people approaching him and praising him based off the game, yet when he turned to singing the same thing happened. He put pressure on himself to be perfect, to perform. And he constantly had more and more people approaching him in response to his music. At the same time, especially toward the end of the book, I felt like there were entire missing pieces of the story. A little more polish would have helped.

All of that being said, I read Saving Everest pretty fast. I didn't want to stop. As a matter of fact, I stayed up a little late two nights just to keep reading. It wasn't a perfect read for me. I felt some pieces were missing and others were contradictory. But overall, I loved Everest and Beverly. Saving Everest gets 3.5 Stars. Have you read Saving Everest? What did you think? Let me know!

I greatly wanted to love this book. The premise sounded like I was going to fall head-over-heels in love. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Despite that, I still enjoyed this book a lot!

Everest is the popular kid in school who soon turns into a pariah when rumors circulate he tried to kill himself. Beverly is the quiet girl at school who suddenly doesn't want Everest to be alone through a dark moment in his life and decides to befriend him. What comes out of this is a beautiful friendship that teaches hope and acceptance.

(I'm sitting with my laptop on my blank, staring blankly in hopes I can put my thoughts together *ahem* Let's try this again in bullet points and see if it works better.)

🌻 The Characters:
I genuinely enjoyed Everest and Beverly, individually and as friends. They were simply adorable together, neither wanting to admit they liked each other. Their friendship felt more like a relationship without them knowing it and I was so giddy over it! It did get old, at times, because it was beyond obvious that their behavior towards each other wasn't just friendly, but it was cute, nonetheless.

I liked Bev's character a whole lot more, though. Her growth shines throughout the novel and it was breathtaking to see her coming out of her shell and befriending her classmates.

Everest, while I liked him, I have conflicting feelings. He starts off being this mouthy, nonchalant, don't-give-a-f*ck-attitude jerk that I was not a fond of. His acting out and his reckless decisions hurt various people and I was just hoping something would happen so he'd change. Thankfully, he did.

I totally adored the friends that Beverly and Everest made along the way. They were friends that truly cared and just wanted what was best for you. Two cute little ones were introduced and I wish I had more time with them! Those were Hadley, Everest's sister, and Manny, Beverly's cousin. They made things super fun and adorable.

🌻 The Relationship:
I love romance, and I loved how these two were behaving with each other. BUT! It became the sole focus on the book. Normally, I do not mind this at all, especially how cute it was! My problem was how because of this, depression wasn't really talked about in the novel.

🌻 The Plot:
This is were my feelings grow even more conflicted. I was expecting an in-depth novel, creating more awareness for Depression in high school teens. Sadly, I saw the "Depression" angle used more to have something interesting at the beginning of the novel and that's it. It was rarely talked about in the book, until this one specific scene (almost at the end of the book) shows light on the matter again.

I liked the idea that the book was on a lighter aspect, but at the same time, it wasn't educating me, or giving me reasons as to why this topic got introduced in the first place, except to throw it in there and serve its purpose of having the popular kid become an outcast.

🌻 The Holes in the Plot:
This novel also introduced many other issues that were never really resolved. They were thrown in the book to mention them and that's it. There was the case of racism. I was expecting something more and once again, it was only named in passing.

The familial issues were yet another thing that weren't resolved as they should have been. For the entire novel, we see Everest's dad being closed-off and talking sh*t about Everest. Then suddenly, he says ONE SENTENCE that gives the inkling that things are better.

We also have Bev's mom and aunt, who irritated me to no end since the book started. Same thing happened with them. Something happened between Bev and her mom, in which I was expecting a full resolution and I didn't get it. It was more of a pat on the back and we're good.

As I mentioned, I liked how it started. It showcased how a happy-looking person can actually be dying inside with so many demons tormenting them. But soon, this fizzled to nothing, left in the past, to focus on the friendship/relationship, specifically Bev's character.

I know I pointed out so many negatives but I did like the novel, mostly for the friendships made. If you want a really light Mental Health novel, then this might just be for you :)

Saving Everest by Sky Chase is amazing! I loved the characters and the plot was heart stopping, i loved every minute of it.

Everest and Beverly are both dealing with issues. Beverly has a tough home life and trouble socializing. Everest is the golden boy that has personal issues and is trying to find his way back from a suicide attempt. Story is slow paced. I had trouble staying with it but I prefer a faster pace book. The story itself wasn't bad and I did enjoy Bev and Ev together in the scenes.

I had some mixed feelings about this one. The plot of this book is one I’ve read before. Boy is depressed and falls in love with the girl that saves him. Plots can be done over and over again but if they’re well written, they can still be entertaining. I did like the premise. I think that suicide and depression are important topics that should be explored in YA books when it’s done correctly. This book doesn’t mention much about therapy or medication, which usually comes after a suicide attempt.

The problem I had with this book is the stereotypes. Our main character Everest, who is a popular jock, attempts suicide and suddenly all of his friends are shunning him. As an act of rebellion, he dyes his hair black and gets some tattoos. That just seemed to fall into the all goths/emos are suicidal stereotype. Personally, I think having a depressed character that dresses “normal” would have been more original and show that what is outwards doesn’t exactly display what’s on the inside.

I also thought it was unrealistic that like, a week after cutting his wrist deeply, he got tattoos to cover them up. I’n pretty sure you have to wait until scars have completely healed to get them tattooed over?

There is some diversity to the story - our main female character, Beverly, is black. Everest deals with mental illness. His friend is gay.

Overall, it’s well written and was a promising idea that just fell through. I know this was originally on Wattpad, and it felt exactly like that. It felt like reading a Wattpad book online and not like an actual book.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgallery for providing me when an ARC.

I have mixed feelings about this one. I like the premise and the characters are relatable but the pacing was too slow for my taste.

I know, I know, I am in the minority here, but what I read is NOT quite as the synopsis advertises. A boy has attempted suicide and yet, he seems secondary to the girl he meets and all of her issues. Hang on for a dizzying ride through a tale that dwells on the surface in an attempt to gather too much “diversity fluff” and fails to provide the meat and potatoes.

Please, do not get me wrong, Sky Chase’s SAVING EVEREST IS written well, the author has clearly poured out a dramatic story, but for me, it should have followed fewer paths, dug a more solid foundation and focused on the horror that would lead a boy who has it all who was unable to find the support he needed when he needed it most. Instead, we skate across high school bullying, the callousness of a school full of “it’s all about me,” attitude, the fascination of someone else’s pain, ostracizing that person inside of stepping up and reaching out beyond oneself.

If you are looking for a story that mentions the following without focus: being gay (and ostracized), being black (and either self-ostracized or ostracized), attempting suicide (and ostracized or becoming fodder for gossip), dysfunctional families from opposite ends of the financial spectrum, infidelity, self-absorbed parenting, this is it.

A valiant attempt to bring a dramatic young adult story to life becomes bogged down in the myriad of issues tossed in and never developed, reminding me of the shallowness so often claimed to be found in society today. We are talking suicide here, in a teen who outwardly has it all, and yet, in the long run, this is more of a collage of life that barely skims the surface on anything except a teen girl’s angst.

Aimed at a younger YA audience, this should have had more impact that ran straight to the heart, a wake up call to look around. It all could have been achieved while still telling a magnetic story. If you have ever been in the close proximity of an attempted or successful suicide, you will understand what I mean.

I received a complimentary ARC edition from WattPad Books! This honest review is voluntary.

Age Range: 12 and up
Grade Level: 7 - 9
Hardcover: 360 pages
Publisher: Wattpad Books (October 8, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0993689922
ISBN-13: 978-0993689925
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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**Disclaimer: I was given an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.**

Unfortunately, I had to stop reading this book. I couldn’t get into the characters or story. There are too many internal monologues and far too much telling of the story.

I appreciated the content warning as I knew what to expect when reading.

Saving Everest was a book that I wasn't sure that I would enjoy, but was surprised how well the story line moved and the development of the characters. Everest returns to school after a failed suicide attempt and Beverly who happened to be seeing him as someone who needed a friend stepped up. She understood what it felt like to be invisible and she drew in Everest to help him find happiness. Would recommend to teens and a teen book club.

This book quickly caught my attention and I really wanted to Like the book. Unfortunately, as quickly as it caught my attention it turned. Too wordy, too overdramatic, too many adjectives, completely unrealistic....I could go on. I was glad when it was over.

Such a heart breakingly beautiful story about overcoming depression and finding love. I just wish there was a more definitive ending about what happens with the main characters.

I found this book hard to get into and frustrating at times. The whole issue of Everest attempting to kill himself was brushed over and it wasn't realistic in how it was handled (therapy, possible medication, support groups... none of this was covered or even brought up during the book). I get that it was a way for the characters to meet and using that as a catalyst but so many other things could've been done instead. I did find the book enjoyable a few times but honestly despite that this book was not something I would read again or recommend to people.