Hush, Hush -- Becca Fitzgerald.
Feb. 4th, 2012 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
persephone20Warning: This is not going to be a nice review. In fact, starting right now, we are going to call this an 'anti-review'. This is not one of those reviews where the reviewer is going to have a couple of problems with the pacing of the story or some of the characters but, overall, the story managed to pull itself together.
Warning the Second: I did recognise, when I picked this book up off the shelves that it was aimed at young adults. I love reading young adult books. I think of the young adult fiction today and I wish that it had been around when I was 16 years old. As it wasn't, I make it up by reading lots of it now. In other parts of this blog, you will find me waxing poetic about authors like Francesca Lia Block, Melissa Marr and Janni Lee Simner.
To set the scene, I am wandering innocently through the airport with my friendthe_bone_yard when suddenly the call of a bookshop proves too strong for us to ignore. The two of us walk in and I get distracted by a book on the New Release stand.
Now, this book is not Hush, Hush, but rather the third book in the trilogy, Crescendo. I shall get back to that again later.
Weaving my way further into the shop, I find that, right up against the very back wall, there is a couple of copies of the second book. This should have been my first hint: right up against the very back wall. Not only that but, when I move the second book to read the back of it, I find the first book craftily hidden.
Lucky! I think to myself. I read the blurb of the first book. And then I read the blurb of second and third books over again, in order this time.
My Thoughts upon Reading the Blurbs: Oh goodness! This is so brilliant. The first book looks like it's going to run like City of Angels, minus the depressing resignation I feel every time I see that picture of stupid Meg Ryan closing her eyes and taking her hands off the handle bars on the back of the DVD case. What did you think was going to happen, Meg?
But, Oho! I think, as I look again upon the second and third books. That there are two sequels means that the main character must live past the end of the first book. She doesn't take her hands off the handlebars, close her eyes and look up into the sky because, well gosh, it's such a lovely day. And so we'll have two more books in which to explore what should have happened in City of Angels.
I'm so excited I can barely think straight. I picture me closing myself up in my bedroom, putting on my copy of the City of Angels soundtrack for background music and ambiance, before indulging in my guiltiest little pleasure since The Vampire Diaries.
The prologue of Becca's Hush, Hush is very good. It conveys a sense of scene very well, though touches lightly enough on the characters that I am sitting there wanting to know more about them. I am invested within these 5 pages, and am looking forward to more.
It's a pity, then, that there is no indication for the next 100 pages where this scene in the prologue is meant to fit in.
Instead, we begin to follow the every day life of a teenage school girl in whom a supernatural type figure has become fascinated with before ever even once speaking to her. I think, at one point, he says something along the lines of, "You're fascinating. I knew you would be."
.... How??!!
This is something that is not explained. I have read enough books like this in the last 12 years to know, by now, it is never explained. Anywhere in all the world for an immortal man to go, and he'll always choose the high school full of teenaged girls. Not creepy, guys. Not creepy at all.
In hindsight, I suspect my disappointment in this book had more to do with what I saw as misrepresentation of the back cover blurbs. Usually, I don't read them. I go on suggestions on what to read next by other writers or friends who have similar tastes. But I'd never heard of Becca's books before, and so I read the blurbs.
Truthfully, this book will probably be found thrilling by readers of Twilight. Many of the same tropes are used in both.
Warning the Second: I did recognise, when I picked this book up off the shelves that it was aimed at young adults. I love reading young adult books. I think of the young adult fiction today and I wish that it had been around when I was 16 years old. As it wasn't, I make it up by reading lots of it now. In other parts of this blog, you will find me waxing poetic about authors like Francesca Lia Block, Melissa Marr and Janni Lee Simner.
To set the scene, I am wandering innocently through the airport with my friend
the_bone_yard when suddenly the call of a bookshop proves too strong for us to ignore. The two of us walk in and I get distracted by a book on the New Release stand.Now, this book is not Hush, Hush, but rather the third book in the trilogy, Crescendo. I shall get back to that again later.
Weaving my way further into the shop, I find that, right up against the very back wall, there is a couple of copies of the second book. This should have been my first hint: right up against the very back wall. Not only that but, when I move the second book to read the back of it, I find the first book craftily hidden.
Lucky! I think to myself. I read the blurb of the first book. And then I read the blurb of second and third books over again, in order this time.
My Thoughts upon Reading the Blurbs: Oh goodness! This is so brilliant. The first book looks like it's going to run like City of Angels, minus the depressing resignation I feel every time I see that picture of stupid Meg Ryan closing her eyes and taking her hands off the handle bars on the back of the DVD case. What did you think was going to happen, Meg?
But, Oho! I think, as I look again upon the second and third books. That there are two sequels means that the main character must live past the end of the first book. She doesn't take her hands off the handlebars, close her eyes and look up into the sky because, well gosh, it's such a lovely day. And so we'll have two more books in which to explore what should have happened in City of Angels.
I'm so excited I can barely think straight. I picture me closing myself up in my bedroom, putting on my copy of the City of Angels soundtrack for background music and ambiance, before indulging in my guiltiest little pleasure since The Vampire Diaries.
The prologue of Becca's Hush, Hush is very good. It conveys a sense of scene very well, though touches lightly enough on the characters that I am sitting there wanting to know more about them. I am invested within these 5 pages, and am looking forward to more.
It's a pity, then, that there is no indication for the next 100 pages where this scene in the prologue is meant to fit in.
Instead, we begin to follow the every day life of a teenage school girl in whom a supernatural type figure has become fascinated with before ever even once speaking to her. I think, at one point, he says something along the lines of, "You're fascinating. I knew you would be."
.... How??!!
This is something that is not explained. I have read enough books like this in the last 12 years to know, by now, it is never explained. Anywhere in all the world for an immortal man to go, and he'll always choose the high school full of teenaged girls. Not creepy, guys. Not creepy at all.
In hindsight, I suspect my disappointment in this book had more to do with what I saw as misrepresentation of the back cover blurbs. Usually, I don't read them. I go on suggestions on what to read next by other writers or friends who have similar tastes. But I'd never heard of Becca's books before, and so I read the blurbs.
Truthfully, this book will probably be found thrilling by readers of Twilight. Many of the same tropes are used in both.
