Ever by Gail Carson Levine

First, let me apologize for last month. It’s amazing how a month short by only two or three days seems like it goes by so quickly!! I just never seemed to have time to go get the Alchemist at the library, so if anyone else read it, I hope they will share their thoughts about it!
So, I made it a point to go to the library first thing this month and I got “Ever” by Gail Carson Levine. Since it is written for young girls (or boys, I guess), it is a pretty quick read. I am a fast reader, and was able to read it in a couple days, just a couple hours at a time. I will be discussing it below and it will contain spoilers, but first I will post questions for others to think about as they read.
1. The story is written from the first person point of view of both the heroine and the hero (a lot like “Breaking Dawn” of Twilight, but each chapter instead of large sections at a time). How does the first person point of view help or hinder the story? How does seeing both sides of the story help or hinder?
2. Levine tackles some interesting issues in this novel. The one that jumped out to me was faith. How do you think this story portrays faith? Do you agree or disagree?
Also, if you could add some suggestions for the next couple months. I need to post that soon! Thanks.
Please also add any questions you’d like to pose to the rest of us.

My discussion, spoilers ahead!
So first off, I kind of liked how the story jumped back and forth between Kezi and Olus. Since both of them kind of fell for the other from the first moment they saw him/her, I didn’t feel like it gave away secrets or anything like that. The first person point of view is also interesting for me. I’m reading another book (“A Great and Terrible Beauty” by Libba Bray—and the jury is still out on it, so I can’t give you my opinion yet… ;)) that uses that tactic. It sort of makes you feel like you’re in on the action, I guess. I was halfway through “A Great and Terrible Beauty” before I realized that the author wasn’t writing in past tense. I think it makes descriptions easier and more alive. As you can see by my second discussion question, I was interested in the type of subject Levine chose for this novel. I’ve read quite a few of her books and I don’t recall any of them dealing with faith in a god or gods. On one hand I see her as just picking up a myth or story from some culture and turning it for her purposes (which is basically what she’s done in a lot of her other books, we are just more familiar with those myths or fairy tales), and so I see her just taking that Greek gods and goddesses thing, or whatever culture she’s taken it from and weaving a story from it. I know when I write, my heroine and/or hero doesn’t necessarily believe or act like I believe or act. On the other hand, she created this god, Admat who is all powerful and all seeing, and if we face it, pretty vengeful and not loving at all. The other Akkan gods and goddesses, besides Olus, while they are not mean, are not very concerned with the mortals either (which reminds me of the Greek myths I read in high school). So I don’t know what to think about it. Somebody tell me, please! :)