Saving Forever (Ever Trilogy #3)
NA/Adult. Does NOT stand alone
Saving Forever, the conclusion to the Ever Series by Jasinda Wilder was amazing. I absolutely LOVED Carter and Eden’s story, and as a standalone it would have been perfect too. This entire series is a 5 star, amazing, MUST READ ride. Jasinda Wilder can write the pants off of any book. It’s crazy how this woman can suck you in on these emotional journeys but leave you feeling good in the end.
If you have not read the first two books in the Ever Trilogy, Forever and Always (see my 5 star review) and After Forever (see my 5 star review), please…STOP RIGHT HERE. There is no way I can review this without spoilers from the other two books.
I have the brain capacity of a hamster. I can’t remember anything, and while I remembered most of the story, idiotic me had forgotten that Eden was pregnant when she left. Duh, how did I forget that detail? Making it even worse, she is pregnant with her twin sister’s husband’s baby, while Ever can never have kids of her own! Holy shit! Saving Forever, to me, was much more about Eden than it was about Ever and Cade, which was good, because I really LOVED their part of the story. But Ever’s part was so much harder to read. Her rehab was long and difficult, and Cade’s guilt kept him from being the man Ever needed. I really wanted to kick his ass a number of times. Ever knew something was wrong, and she preferred to be in denial…so this once so-in-love couple were torn apart by his guilt and her fear, when they needed each other the most.
“I wanted to shake her awake and tell her to leave me, to find someone worthy of her perfection. I wanted to confess, so I could be free of the secret, rid of the weight of my silent sin. It festered within me, rotting and acidic, poisonous.”
The book begins with Eden, who ran away to her parent’s lakeside cottage that hasn’t been used in years. It was so neglected it was basically crumbling around her, but she needed to be alone. Alone with her guilt, her loneliness and her self loathing for for taking and providing comfort to her twin sister’s husband while Ever was in a coma for almost two years. If you read the sneak preview in After Forever, you know about Eden seeing the guy on the beach. Strangely, the book began with the same scene, but from Carter’s point of view.
“God in heaven, who was she? I’d never seen her before. There was no way on earth I could ever forget seeing this girl. She was, without a doubt, the most gorgeous creature I’d ever seen.”
“I stood, frozen, thigh deep in the water. Staring. Blatantly. I needed to know her name. I needed to hear the sound of her voice. She’d have a voice like music, to match the symphony that was her body.”
He wanted to talk to her so much.
“Why? Why couldn’t I get myself to talk?…It had been almost a year now. I should be over what happened. But I wasn’t. Obviously. I couldn’t even get a simple ‘hello’ past my lips.”
Carter and his brothers owned a winery, and Carter was a master carpenter. But since the tragedy of losing his wife, and the guilt he felt over it, he hasn’t been able to make himself speak for a year. But now he can’t get the woman from the beach and her eyes that were filled with such pain out of his head, no matter how hard he tried. When he hears her playing a haunting melody on her cello, and he is drawn to watch her, he needed to know her.
“What was it, I wondered, that could bring that kind of searing pain to such sweet and perfect beauty? I needed to know. But I might never find out if I couldn’t get myself to talk to her.
Or talk at all”
The book is written in FOUR, yes FOUR points of view, in chunks, rather than alternating by chapter. We begin with Carter for a few chapters, then it switches to Ever (then Eden, then Cade). Ever is taking baby steps getting better. Caden is there for her, yet not.
“There was no way to know what he was feeling, and he wasn’t telling. And if it was guilt I saw and felt in him, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know where it was coming from just yet. I wasn’t sure I could handle it.”
As she finds the letters Caden wrote to her every day, she begins to see what he went through for all of those months, and it reminded me, as a reader, of the love they shared and lost. But I honestly just wanted to kick Caden’s ass. She KNOWS something is wrong, and she NEEDED him. Either tell her and get it over with, or suck it up and be the man she needed.
“Us. You. It’s all…wrong. You’re…-different.” ~Ever
Yet he tries to tell her, but she doesn’t want to know. Ugh…he can’t win either way. But Ever needs him to know she loves him.
With his cock poised against the opening of my pussy, I pressed my lips to his ear and whispered. “I love you. No matter what. Forever and Always.”
Then we get to Eden’s point of view, and the scene from the preview. Right here is where I had the only real issue with the book…I loved every inch of the story, but the timeline felt a little strange here, because we went right back to the beginning, when Eden first sees Carter on the beach, before they meet. Yet this time there are a few scenes that are exactly the same, but from Eden’s point of view. Since I was reading an arc, I honestly thought this was an editing error, but I asked Jasinda, and she said to just keep reading. It would make sense. And it did. After this part, the rest of the book was 5+ stars, but I had a really hard time with with the choppy timeline, and going back in time for the first 25-30% of the book. I felt it wasn’t necessary to have the same full scenes from both Carter and Eden’s point of view, or at least not have them so far apart from each other.
Eden kept seeing Carter, and she couldn’t stop thinking of him.
“I needed to not be thinking of him. He had no place in my life. I belonged alone. I didn’t deserve friendship, or company. I deserved the misery crushing me, and nothing else.”
When Part 2 begins at 32% I couldn’t put the book down. Carter is OMG delicious. Though Eden pushes him away, and can’t give him anything, he is there for her, fixing her house, and being her friend. I loved to watch their lust-tinged friendship grow. Carter is ~sigh~ perfect. He brought Eden to life, and I really loved what they gave each other, and how he stuck around for a pregnant woman who couldn’t give herself to him in any way.
“If I’m walking into heartbreak, that’s my own choice, Eden.”
“I’ll be there for you no matter what. Whether you can give me what I want in return or not, I’ll be there for you.”
Likes:
- Carter, Carter, oh, did I say Carter?
- Carter’s family, especially his mother.
- The way it all worked out.
- Jasinda’s writing. Oh my, the amazing quotes I highlighted!
- A perfect conclusion to the story.
- Though the searing guilt both parties felt was difficult to read about, if they didn’t feel that horrible guilt, it would have been worse.
- The pictures Jasinda puts in your head. I feel like I can visualize the area, the lake, the vineyards, and Carter so clearly, something I don’t often notice.
- Melding two very separate stories into one is not an easy task.
- Perfect ending.
Dislikes:
- Reading the same scenes from 2 different points of view, but kind of far apart in the book gave me some strange timeline issues, and caused some confusion in the beginning.
- Ever/Eden Caden/Carter such similar names, so reading a book from all 4 points of view, I sometimes got confused.
- There were a few timeline inconsistencies, but these may have been corrected on editing.
Rating for Saving Forever: 4.5 – 4.75 Stars, 4 Heat
The EVER SERIES RATING: 5 Stars, 4 Heat
The series as a whole was an amazing read, and I think that if they are read all in a row it may even be better. Jasinda takes you through the gamut of emotions. So many emotions! Part of me just wanted to read Carter and Eden’s book. I would be so into it, then we would switch to Ever and Cade, which was a much harder read. For me, I think it may have read better if we kept each couple’s points of view together, and not even in chunks. Like have a Carter chapter, and Eden chapter, Carter, then Eden etc. Then switch to Ever and Cade alternating chapters. Reading a chunk from Carter, then a chunk from Ever, then Carter’s chunk from Eden’s pov again, then Caden, just made the beginning feel to choppy for me.
The story itself for Saving Forever was 5 stars, but the way it was told, in chunks, switching points of views, especially at the beginning made me feel like there was a mistake.
Jasinda’s writing is pure genius. Knowing that this story is based on a true story makes it even more interesting to read. I am not a lover of trilogies usually, but I must say, The Ever Trilogy is one of my favorite ever, and a MUST READ.
Purchase Forever and Always (Ever Trilogy 1) by Jasinda Wilder: Amazon | BN.com
Purchase After Forever (Ever Trilogy 2) by Jasinda Wilder: Amazon | BN.com
Purchase Saving Forever (Ever #3) by Jasinda Wilder
Amazon (All countries) | BN.com
Ever and Cade,
Sorry I vanished like I did. I’m not sure I can even explain things. I don’t know when I’ll be back. IF I’ll be back. I’m not sure of anything, except that I love you, Ever. You’re my twin, my best friend, and leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I know you don’t understand. Maybe you never will. I hope you don’t, honestly. It would be easier that way. That’s cowardly, I’m sure.
Cade, take care of her. Love her, the way she deserves. The way you always have, for forever and always.
If I could ask you anything, it’s that you remember me as I was, and forget me as I am.
I’m sorry, and goodbye, and I love you.
Eden
Click for links
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jasinda Wilder is a Michigan native with a penchant for titillating tales about sexy men and strong women. When she’s not writing, she’s probably shopping, baking, or reading.
Leave a Reply