Only Everything by Kieran Scott Series: True Love Trilogy #1
Genres: Contemporary, Mythology, Young Adult
Published by Simon and Schuster on May 6th 2014
Also by this author: Complete Nothing, Something True, Pretty Fierce, Wish You Were Gone
Format: Paperback (352 pages) • Source: Gift
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Sometimes the gods can be so unreasonable.
Like Zeus, the king, who thinks the proper reaction to finding me kissing a mortal is to threaten my boyfriend Orion's life, banish me to Earth, and force me to inspire true love between three couples without my powers. I know! Elders! I'm Eros, a.k.a. Cupid. The Goddess of Love. Until this morning, anyway.
Now I'm stuck on Earth with no clue how to function as a human, and I can't even conjure up my magical bow and arrows to help me do my job. I've already met this amazing guy—Charlie, a new kid in school like me—but matching him up isn't as easy as I thought. Turns out opposites don't attract, nearly identicals don't attract, and giving a guy what he seems to want is just one big disaster. My sweet new friend Katrina might work, but she's got more complications than Medusa's hair, and a live-in boyfriend with a serious mean streak. Probably not the best idea to go there.
If I don't make a match, I may never see Orion again. I have so much to lose, and only everything to gain.
I really love the whole set-up of and idea behind this series. Eros, who chooses the human name of True, is Cupid up on Mount Olympus. She falls in love with Orion, who is a god-turned-mortal. Zeus finds out and gets pretty pissed, so he sends her down to earth without her powers and with a mission: she’s supposed to pair up three couples before she can come back home and hopefully save Orion. This is a trilogy, so she pairs up one couple per book. I was initially annoyed that the book had three points of view, but I think it ends up working. Because True has to pair up a couple, it does hear what’s going on in all three people’s heads. All three characters were equally important to moving the plot forward and had their own sets of issues. The three characters had distinct voices and experiences, so it was definitely easy to keep them straight. Katrina’s father died in an accident (which she hasn’t fully come to terms with yet), she has a horrible boyfriend, and her mother doesn’t pay her any attention. Charlie is trying to make friends at school because he’s moved around so much and does everything to try to please his father. True obviously has her own issues because of Orion, getting used to life on earth, and not having her powers to help her make matches. It was funny to see True getting used to life on earth; she didn’t understand basic common courtesy or the fact that people won’t like it if you steal their stuff. True set Charlie up with two different girls before things finally worked out with Katrina (that’s not really a spoiler; it’s pretty obvious based on the synopsis!) and he thought she was a bad matchmaker. It was just kind of funny because she’s essentially a matchmaker for a living… and has been for thousands of years. The ending of the book really sealed the deal for me. It was so cute and had all of the loose ends tied up. The very end, though, completely took me by surprise! I was thinking of taking a break between the first book and the second book, but that last page made me jump right into the next book.
I know that it was a main part of the plot and a big barrier for Katrina and Charlie, but the whole thing with Ty, Katrina’s bad boyfriend, was annoying. She really couldn’t see how terrible he was? It was a typical situation where the girl makes excuses for him and sticks around no matter how poorly he treats her. I just wanted to shake some sense into her. It was annoying that she was so blind, but I can’t say that I’m surprised. A lot of relationships are like that, especially in high school. While I did enjoy that there was a lot going on in each character’s life, sometimes it was too much. It’s hard to keep focused on each person’s problems when there are three points of view; you find yourself unequally invested in them. A lot of the time I was looking forward to True’s chapters more than anyone else’s. Charlie’s chapters were truthfully kind of boring comparatively. He was also pretty blind to what was going on around him. The way the story was written was to show all of the barriers to them eventually getting together. Because of that, there wasn’t too much time with them actually interacting with each other. They had a project together and their attraction was obvious, but it wasn’t as frequent as I would have liked. There was little to no swooning, compared to most YA contemporaries. It all worked out in the end, of course, but some parts of the journey weren’t as fun as others. That being said, it was kind of hard for this book to grab me. It wasn’t one where I was eager to sit down and read it every day. Because of that, it took me a pretty long time to finish it compared to usual books. I was more interested as I got further into the story though.
This book was really fun and cute. That’s the best way I can describe it. It’s definitely a great start to this trilogy and I’m hoping the other two books are equally adorable. I definitely am looking for more swoons with the next books too. Based on the end of the book, there should be even more complexities coming into True’s life, which will definitely be interesting. I recommend these ones if you’re looking for a mythology-oriented retelling; there were lots of references to other gods and Mount Olympus that were fun.
I can’t say I have ever heard of this book before. I do love stories about the gods and goddesses. Greek mythology is probably my favorite. I will have to check this out!
I love Kieran Scott’s writing under the name Kate Brian, so I had to give this series a shot! I think it’s pretty underrated and most people haven’t heard of it, honestly. I’d recommend it! It’s cute.
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