Everest Finley has it all. He's good looking, is the captain of the football team, his family is rich and he is adored by all. He should be the happiest person on the planet but he's not. Not even close. In fact, he's so unhappy he's ready to take his own life and when his attempt fails and he returns to school his world is turned upside down. His friends and his girlfriend want nothing to do with him. He's ridiculed and shunned by the in-crowd and he discovers the people he thought were his friends have abandoned him at a time when he needs them the most. Things start to change for him when he meets Beverly. Beverly is Everest's polar opposite. Where he was in the social spotlight she stays in the shadows and keeps to herself. Bright and focused on her schooling she goes unnoticed by most. She sees something in Everest that others don't and when they become unlikely friends things start to change for both of them.
So first let me say that this is my first NetGalley read and review. (Thanks for the opportunity :D) I'm really glad that I was approved to read this book. I loved the characters and it even sparked some schoolish memories for me. I love that though Everest is this super popular guy he doesn't let it go to his head. He's kind to others and treats people with respect and not like they're beneath him like so oftentimes happens with football jocks. Beverly is a ray of sunshine and it was simply hard for me to believe that she had zero friends. I mean heck...I wanted to be her friend. Kind-hearted and just easy going. Always putting others before herself. The kind of person you want as a friend. I think my favorite character though was Nami. She was hilarious! Brutely honest, tell you like it is kind of person. Stands up for the little guy and such a fierce and loyal friend.
Although I really enjoyed the story I did feel like there were some holes. It started out focused on the fact that Everest was dealing with depression and suicide. He didn't have a very good relationship with his parents and you even get to delve into some issues that Beverly has with her mom. There was the issue of race that was touched on a bit. I thought okay well we're going to address these issues and that's great something that I'm sure people can relate to and you'll get to see how they dealt with it but as the story progressed it kind of strayed a bit. I felt like there needed to be more insight into the issues that were being presented and for me, I just didn't get that. It started to focus more on just the relationship between Everest and Beverly, which like I said I really enjoyed, but by the end of the story, I felt like I was reading a completely different book than the one I'd started with. I didn't like that the ending felt very rushed. Almost like time ran out and everything was being crammed in at the last minute. That part did kind of fall short for me. I wanted to see things through and have them dealt with and again that just isn't what I got.
I did really like the plot and loved where the story went and the relationship-building not only between Everest and Beverly but the other friends they made along the way. I liked that to me it was kind of teaching you a life lesson. Be kind. Always be kind. No matter who you think a person is you never really know what's going on underneath the surface and what they're dealing with in their personal lives. I would definitely recommend it for someone who is looking for a lighter read that touches on some mental health issues but isn't very deep in that area.

Everest trys to commit suicide and the whole school finds out. The students of the school treat him badly that he feels like he has nowhere to go so he ends up at the library where he meets Beverly.

The writing was okay and the flow was good, but the way the messages were handled did not sit with me well. Somebody is depressed so the kids start bullying him for trying to commit suicide. 😤 Even his father treats him like garbage which could be where his depression comes from but was not really talked about all that much. 🤷‍♀️ The racism in this book calling Everst black beauty which is a horse by the way or the way Everest father said good thing where having chicken tonight.🤬 oh there's more but dont want to keep ranting on about it. Then I felt like half way through the book the point of the story wasnt an issue anymore so let's just throw added material to just make the book longer. I felt like it was just another cliche book about two characters that are in love but don't know it.

Originally from wattpad. Dealing with issues that teens now a days deal with.

Everest is a handsome and wealthy. He’s captain of the football team. Yet he’s still unhappy. He even tried to take his own life.

Beverly is African american. She’s quiet and shy. She’s a hard worker. Doesn’t have the best of home lifes. But through that all she still manages to stay positive

There’s so much angst. These two help each other grow . First time reader and overall a good read.

*Received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.

I found myself rooting for Everest and Beverly through the book. That's the best thing I can say about the story. I feel like it didn't tackle the "harder subjects" correctly/appropriately.. but that is just my opinion.

I found this book wonderful in the sense of diversity and heavy hitting subjects. Though when it got down to it the execution and handling on hard subjects like depression and suicide could have been handled better rather then just being a tool used to move the story along and then forgotten have way through.

All in all the love story was cute. Everest and Beverly are a couple to root for and that’s a hard thing to accomplish.

Worth the read if you down mind the subject matter

I wish this book actually followed what it stood and was written for but ofc not. It turned out into another romance :) add a sprinkle of diversity and teenagers giving "Ted talk" speeches and romantic interests not realising they're in love. Thank you 🙃

I liked the beginning and was happy that it was about depression. I was wrong. Only a few chapters had mentions of depression and then it was all them falling in love gradually. Oof. At some points the author did remember to sprinkle about mentions of mental health so that we don't forget but that's it.

I absolutely got irritated with that 'Bye Ev', 'Bye Bev' dialogue, my god. I just . . .
Although I did like the chemistry though. I liked the friendships that formed and how the story unfolded. My only complain is that towards the later half of the story, the whole theme of mental health somehow vanished. The essence was lost somewhere in the middle.

I wish we could see more into Everest's family situation and see an end to it? I just felt the romance got too much and the story's side characters just got lost. I wished the author had explored their stories more.

Overall, it was a good book and I did enjoy reading it but I did not love it as much as I had thought I would.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with an e-arc of this book. All opinions expressed are fully mine.

Saving Everest is a novel that dances that contains several massive issues; they are addressed and/or resolved in a haphazard manner. The novel begins with everyone in school hearing rumors of popular student Everest's attempted suicide, an occurrence that touches upon all subsequent events in this novel. Ostracized by his friends and other students who look to the cool kids for behavioral clues, Everest is at first wary when Beverley, the sole black girl in the school, decides to befriend him. Beverley goes from being completely ignored by everyone in the school to spurring all sorts of characters to change in positive ways. She's almost Pollyanna-ish, and most of the awful behavior that she is subjected to in this novel slides right off her back. While a lot of what happens in this novel could be described as cute, it left me with a lot more questions than answers.

What is this town's policy on truancy?
How about child abandonment?
Why are people racist in one scene and then totally okay with characters of color later?

Overall, I found this to be a decent but largely uneven novel.

This had a lot of potential, and I was sure I would just love it but it just wasn't for me.

Bev & Ev, were cute but not enough so to save the pacing of this story.

Rating: 3.5
I received an ARC of this with the promise of an honest review, so here it is. I wanted to love this book, like really love this book, but by the end, I ended up skimming just to finish. I didn't know this was a wattpad book until after I started reading and you know yah girl is always going to support Wattpaders :) I loved Sky Chase's writing, but do wish they would change some of the plot. I believe this story started off strong. I loved the aspect of the truth that is faced when one attempts suicide because it's a reality that happens every minute of every day. I lost my best friend a couple months after we graduated high school to suicide and that is something that follows me around every second of my life. We don't know what someone is going through. Anyone can put forth an act but be dying on the inside. Awareness of what Everest faced is a great example. I needed more of that though. The pain of what was faced after his attempt was left to fizzle out. Soon the entire book because too cliché and I could guess the ending, which is a downer for me. When I reach about 60% of the book, that's when I lost interest.

I was lucky enough to read this ARC and thoroughly enjoyed it! It dealt with some sensitive issues very honestly and with great empathy. It was very true to life and represented the serious issues that young people face today with the pressures that society puts on them. I would highly recommend this book and would definitely read more by this author.

I believe many people will really enjoy this book, it just wasn’t for me. It was a little too slow, didn’t really see a plot, but it was well written. I think a lot of the younger (teens) readers will relate to this story more than others.

Getting into a New Adult/Young Adult story always takes a bit of recalibration in all senses of the word, though I do go into a read like this from time to time.

‘Saving Everest’ got me curious and yes, it delves into the heavy angst bit that seems to be the pre-requisite of such books these days along with the weightier topics of depression and suicide, familial fractures and the difficult routes out of these states.

Essentially, there are no surprises in here: the blurb is as the story goes and while I can respect the way friendship and emotive teen issues resonate with YA readers, this didn’t do much for me at all.

I do have a tendency to get antsy with pages after pages of internal monologues or with scenes that might or might not lead anywhere plot-wise; flipping through the pages as Sky Chase builds a slow burn between Beverly and Everest got me frustrated only because I couldn’t get up the anticipation to what was coming. There is barely a buildup between the protagonists through a whopping few hundred pages—a very mild romance best describes the story of two young people helping each other grow and change—and sort of ends as it fizzles out unsatisfactorily. My mistake perhaps, then, was to have gone through this book thinking it was categorised as a NA or YA romance when it didn’t quite feel like one.

Again, ‘Saving Everest’ is in no way badly written or badly handled technically. My reason for finding it unremarkable has to do with my own expectations and the  literary distance that I’ve travelled since my YA days, where going back is more than a little difficult right now.