There is a God. And he is vicious. I know this because I survived reading this shit. The horror of this book has literally (pun not intended) grated oThere is a God. And he is vicious. I know this because I survived reading this shit. The horror of this book has literally (pun not intended) grated on me for the entire time I was reading it.
The good: the idea is interesting. I liked the plot vehicle too and was totally aboard (pun not intended as well) cruise ship. Part of the world building were interesting as well. I also loved the mermaids, to an extent. I loved the concept behind them. It was interesting enough that if you're more of a plot person, they can kind of make it seem like there was a plot here.
The bad: everything else. Literally everything. I don't even know where to start. JFC.
The Story Editing: this was terribly done. Shockingly so. There was numerous about faces in terms of plot and characters -- and not in a 'well, we learned something new' type thing. Things would be one way in one chapter and completely change in the next. It was like this book was between story edits 2 and 3. You can see the evolution of things here, which is fascinating, but I didn't want that when I read this.
For example, in chapter 15 or 16, we are told Tori avoids Octavia like nothing else. Tori's sister died in the previous cruise and Octavia is filling the same role she had before. This is taken to such a degree that she's never gotten her on camera and we literally told that Octavia's contract says she can do a soft interview to her assistant instead of doing one with Tori. Which she does. She talks to him for an hr and this is the extent of Tori's interviewing stuff with Octavia.
In the next chapter or two, this changes to Octavia doing more on camera interviews with Tori than anyone else on the entire ship. To the point where she's worried Imagine will think something's up. And the runner up person who she's interviewed is Tori's assistant.
Like, what?
Or we're told that Heather is deaf so she didn't take the time to capture any sounds (or rather, she didn't think to do it) with her diver and paragraphs later we're told the two of them conspired to put listening stuff on her diver because Imagine would apparently overlook that. Paragraphs later.
Don't even get me started on the mermaids. We're told they use sound to lure prey to them and are given numerous examples of this, and then this gets an abrupt about face at the end where they suddenly hunt quietly.
The internal monologuing and external pontificating: you could take these out and the book would be a quarter of the size. What's worse is that it's all repetitive to the degree that you can guess who might die next. It was so obnoxious. Everyone in the book is beautiful and they know it. Literally everyone (except Jillian) states it in numerous places. Everyone is using this opportunity to "prove themselves" and states it every other chapter.
Jillian was the worst. JFC. She'd just pontificate about everything. It was horrible.
There's so much more but I don't have the time. >.<...more
I literally can't. My head just exploded. This gets my Worst Book of 2017 award. Me, when I finished:
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When people tell me this is a great[image]
I literally can't. My head just exploded. This gets my Worst Book of 2017 award. Me, when I finished:
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When people tell me this is a great book with a great love:
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What is remotely redeeming in the MC? What? She does everything anyone tells her to do. Literally everything. This entire book is people telling her to do shit and she does them, regardless of what. And I mean that in every sense of the word. This woman would jump off a building if someone told her to.
Father wants her to kill herself? 'Yup! Alrighty then!'
Random guy comes up to her and says he wants to give her the moon and stars to weave in her hair? She's all like 'SOLD!' and marries him on the spot.
She sees this random person in a mirror that she's never talked to before and this person tells her to destroy this other person because he wants to kill her. This guy hasn't done anything harmful to her and yet she goes along with it. She's like 'yup! alrighty then!'
Gets in fight with hubby and hubby says in the argument 'you're free to leave anytime' and she says 'alrighty then!' and literally dissolves herself.
And all this shit about her feelings. She does all this because it feels "right". Random weirdo you've never met before tells you to destroy someone and you don't even pause to consider it because it feels right? WHAT?
I just can't even. All the other plot issues pale in comparison to this fucking idiot....more
So this is about a hubby and a wife. The hubby is a gambler (who apparently is able to stop without any back sliding at all), and they buy this run doSo this is about a hubby and a wife. The hubby is a gambler (who apparently is able to stop without any back sliding at all), and they buy this run down house for whatever reason (this is what I always do when I owe a ton to gambling. Doesn't everyone?) The house is considered haunted and "creepy" things are supposed to be happening.
This book suffers from the same lot of problems that new horror authors generally create. That is, they come up with a creepy place and idea, and that's all there is. There is no plot here. It's aimless and wandering. This is made worse by the disjointed narration and the things that "happen". None of the things that were supposed to scare were scary.
Such like, at one point, she thinks she walks through her neighbors house then turns around and realizes she didn't. Oh, and she got her plate back from said neighbor too. It's like, uh, yeah. Getting plates back from neighbors truly is scary, huh? Or another scene where the hubby thinks he's lost but he apparently was dreaming -- only this happened when he was going home from work and he wakes up in a chair and this is supposed to do what for us now? ...more
What's wrong with this is basically... the everything. I can't think of anything good about it.
Wait. I lied. There was two things: it's very, very shoWhat's wrong with this is basically... the everything. I can't think of anything good about it.
Wait. I lied. There was two things: it's very, very short and it was action from start to finish.
You might be thinking that isn't bad. An action packed UF! Wow!
You should know, however, that 95% of the events in the book had nothing to do with the plot of the book. She's a tracker who tracks kids. She's given a kid to track but, right from the beginning, we learn this kid isn't in the "real world" so she goes to tell her computer savvy friend to find likely spots for where she is. And after that, it's just basically killing time until her friend calls her back.
The entire book is just one long time killer.
It could've still been interesting but for, well, the fact that this author is a HUGE believer in deus ex machina and conveniences. She doesn't get out of anything on her own. Every, single, freakin' time someone either saves her or there's a convenience that means it became way easier than the author told us it would be.
She also has a destiny, of which we are told by like 10 different characters. Over and over. And tri-colored eyes. Because two different colors are SO last year.
But on the subject of conveniences/ deus ex machina, this author is like... golden. Every would-be author should read this book to learn what not to do. It is the worst case of this I've ever read. Example:
Three harpies swoop to kill her. We're told they're ubber strong and she and her witchy friend barely managed to kill on a year ago. She literally kills the first in the first swing of the sword. It was a "lucky" hit. She gets in her car. She's in the middle of a desert but no problem. There just so happens to be a large herd of Unicorns, the natural enemies of harpies, that swoop in to save her from the second and she learns a special word to save her from the third.
She needs climbing gear to go down this mine so she and the guy goes out. Nonsense action, they come back, oh look -- the police following them are helpfully killed by harpy 3, the magical word works, and WOW! all the climbing gear and shit she needs is magically in the police vehicles! How convenient is that?!
It's like that the entire book. Utter bullshit from start to finish....more
Oh Lord, why did I read this? I hate it, really truly, hate it when authors invention a bunch of BS history to feed us. I've been on a Tudor history bOh Lord, why did I read this? I hate it, really truly, hate it when authors invention a bunch of BS history to feed us. I've been on a Tudor history binge lately, but that honestly isn't why I read this. It was on sale, damn it. What could I do? xP
This follows Hannah, a Jew, who comes to England to flee from the Spanish Inquisition. Her mother wasn't so lucky. She was burned at the stake. She meets two random people in her shop one day, randomly blurts out something about an Angel, and suddenly she's the fool to the dying King. Afterward, she comes the fool for Mary I.
None of the relationships and/or events and/or the motives behind said events make sense. Hannah is unfailingly loyal to Mary basically on first sight. To a point that's just blatantly, horrifyingly impossible to believe. This is the Queen who's related to the people who killed her Mother and forced their families to flee, and yet there is absolutely NO real reluctance on the part of Hannah.
On the other side of the coin, she pretty much hates Elizabeth on sight. Oh, she says at places that she admires her or wants to study to become a woman like her, but her thoughts and actions don't agree. Hannah literally called and thought of Elizabeth as whore more than 30 times during the course of this book. It's whore this and whore that, etc.
Now, here's one of the biggest reasons I had swallowing this: the burnings of heretics in England. Mary starts up that good ol' fire and Hannah is STILL unfailingly loyal. Hell, Hannah is brought in by the Inquisitors under the order of Mary and SHE'S STILL UNFAILINGLY LOYAL. Mary wanted to torture her and Hannah has no problem with that. She blames everyone, including Dee who gets her off, but Mary? Of course not.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth who thinks these burnings are terrible is still whore this and whore that in Hannah's eyes. There's no sympathy on Hannah's part for Elizabeth, despite the shared life story. She flirts with men, her guardian took liberties with her (which, historically, wheren't anything she'd wanted -- even the Queen had participated to an extent), and she's next in line to the throne, so I guess that makes her evil.
PG has a bad habit of victim blaming and it's much in evidence here. Both Hannah and Mary think that Elizabeth has "stolen" the people's affect, despite either being locked up or in the country much of Mary's reign. This is thought while Mary is burning people. Hannah blames Elizabeth for stealing the peoples love away while MARY IS BURNING PEOPLE. I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I think having your family members burned alive would make me dislike the ruler.
Mary/Hannah think she's 'seducing' the King and yet Mary's hubby wasn't a King. He couldn't set Mary aside for Elizabeth. That's simply ridiculous.
This book is one part utter batshit crazy conspiracies + one part Princess Diaries + one part terrible history of even basic facts (such as how long aThis book is one part utter batshit crazy conspiracies + one part Princess Diaries + one part terrible history of even basic facts (such as how long ago Alexander the Great lived and what caused WW1 & WW2) + one part triangle + ten parts stupid.
I don't even know where to begin. I really don't.
This is the kind of book that forces the reader to reexamine his or her life. At some point, you said to yourself that this couldn't be that bad and so you read it. Perhaps a friend suggested it to you, praising it for all to see. Perhaps you just stumbled upon it at a library or bookstore or online and that you'd read it.
Well, it's official that you've made seriously terrible choices in your life. What are you doing talking to people who give you this mental torture? What in your life made you think this was a good idea or to even give it a shot?
*shake head*
That said, the plot was stupid. Basically, 12 families that were part of Alexander the Great's ruling bodies have ruled the world since he died. This is hilarious if you know the history and how these families were either destroyed right off the bat or centuries later. Cleopatra, anyone? LOL. Right around the same time, a prophecy was pronounced that the chosen one and girl with purple eyes would rule the world and destroy their enemies.
Our plucky (re: incredibly stupid) MC is that same purple eyed girl. Can I just say how much I hate this? She has a DESTINY plus PURPLE EYES? That's like two of the hugest cliches and they're nicely tied together. Apparently, no other woman has ever had purple eyes. Not in their family. Nothing suspicious about that, amirite?
What follows is a series of events that no sane person would undergo. She's in HS and decides to go to the prom, despite her mother's wishes (why her mother would leave her alone "for work" is beyond me.) Anyway, she meets hot guy #1 at the prom and is taken "hostage" by hot guy #2 for a minute before the threat of a scream scares him off. He puts a knife to her side. But goddamn if he's not hot, amirite? Nothing says intelligence like trying to kidnap someone in the middle of a school dance.
So, anyway, these two guys know her father or at least her father's family. With that in mind, she decides to go with hot guy #2 (the one who tried to kidnap with and pressed a knife to her) overseas to freakin' France. Without leave a note.
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Once she's there, hot guy #2 promptly sets her up in rooms fit for a noble and takes her dress shopping. And goes to clubs. And does other things. And people try to kill her but it's cool. The killers are as stupid as she is and our plucky MC comes out okay.
Who would do that? Seriously, who would? "Oh, you just threatened my life and tried to kill me but, sure, I'll leave the country on a whim to find out something about the man that apparently abandoned me at birth."
It was just stupid after stupid after stupid. Save yourself; Don't read this....more
Note to Future Self, From Past Self: If two of the top 5 reviews of a book are 1 star and the third is a 2 star, PERHAPS THE UNIVERSE IS TRYING TO TELNote to Future Self, From Past Self: If two of the top 5 reviews of a book are 1 star and the third is a 2 star, PERHAPS THE UNIVERSE IS TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING! Thank you.
How do you describe this? It's not a book. There's no story here. The "story" on back is so briefly dealt with in this book that it's blip on the map. The rest is like verbal vomit of a hungover philosophy student that just flunked out of school. One that thinks he's so original (and that's the reason he flunked out.)
The first half consists of the road trip to his parents. It's filled with boring stories that are supposed to be interesting -- like: the girlfriend had a drivers ed teacher who, on their first trip out, told her about another girl who'd told him she was special because she was the best kisser in the world. The girlfriend told this man that can't be possible because it takes two to kiss. This floored the drivers ed teacher and he just sat in his car outside her house until she went to him and kissed him to prove the point.
And that was it. Only we didn't even get to see the kissing part. Wow. So interesting. So original.
The rest is full of stupid life wonderings. You know how it can be when you're drunk and you think of something "really smart" and all your drunk friends think it's smart too so you write it down? (STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT) And then you'd read it in the morning and realize you're an idiot? This was how the ramblings would go on. One example: reality just happens once (as in, we only live once.) This is enough to "turn on" the girlfriend.
Then we see the folks, who are weird, but we quickly leave after dinner. The rest is spent at the school and then we get to the end...
And that's the worse of all. It's equivalent to a 'and then she woke up' type things. Before you all (who've read it) jump me, notice to word equivalent. It's one of THOSE types of endings that you either really love or really hate. I hate them because they're lazy, like this entire book. But, who knows, YMMV.
I get it all. I get the point of this entire book but that doesn't mean I think it's even a passable first draft of a nanowrimo book....more
Okay, so I was going to give this two stars but the ending really killed it for me. By really, I mean it dug up the rotting corpse of dead hopes I hadOkay, so I was going to give this two stars but the ending really killed it for me. By really, I mean it dug up the rotting corpse of dead hopes I had about this book being good and lit them on fire. I'm so angry with the ending. I'm also angry that it nose dived so fast.
The first half or so was really interesting and good. I was happily chugging along and then...
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It's about this girl who has the shittiest people in her life. She gets fed up, steals the credit care from her mothers' wife, and flees to California. As punishment for this, she's allowed to stay for the summer and is told she needs to pay her back and buy her ticket back. (Which, btw, somehow costs $500 -- who the fuck would pay that for a one way ticket -- or, more to the point, who'd pay that to get back?) One of her sister's exes "pays" her to research this film that's based on the Manson family murders.
This is all interesting to start with but halfway through, it completely loses momentum and becomes this weird romance (that's mostly insta.) That carries the book through to the end, for the most part.
Okay, so I get the message was supposed to be "no place like home" or even "Hollywood isn't always as nice as it seems" but I came away with the fact that she should just take the abuse that's being handed to her and feel like a shitty person if she doesn't want to put up with it. That horrible girl!
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Since the plot is nonexistent, we get most of the stuff from the characters. And I hated them all, save maybe Dex, who is completely colorless and lets himself get used for the entire book. I even hated the MC about 80% of the way through. Most of the book I was like 'eh' but at the end? When she started agreeing with them?
Her mother is this fucked up woman who's had god knows how many relationships and blames Anne for everything. At one point, she even blames her cancer on her. "Oh, hello Dear. I have cancer. BTW, it's your fault. That's why I don't want you to come home -- er, and it's for a lesson! A lesson!"
Her wife's response to the stolen credit card is "is she a psychopath?" I'm not joking. Psychopath? REALLY? How about it's a cry for help? Or a big fucking sign she's not adjusting well? Oh wait, that's right. She must be Ted Bundy.
The rest are all fucked up, including her best friend, and like everyone guilt trips her. The slut shaming was also disgusting. I didn't like her sister but come on.
And then we get to the end and she just believes that, yes, she should take all the shit her family does to her and she should just do whatever her psycho bff wants, and all that was obnoxious but then her sister seriously says she should apologize to her mother? What?
She tries to be "deep" about shit and it's just obvious she has no idea what she's talking about. Like one of the Manson girls was molested and she wasn't allowed to eat at the table, and the take-away for Anne was that every kid should have doors that lock from the inside and you should feed kids when their hungry. Note, said Manson girl wasn't starved. She just didn't eat with the family. This is supposed to be such a deep thing and it's just like WHAT?
YOU'RE RIGHT UMMINGER! IF ONLY THOSE LAZY MOLESTED KIDS LEARNED HOW TO INSTALL LOCKS ON THEIR BEDROOM DOORS, NO ONE WOULD EVER BE MOLESTED AGAIN?! PARENTS HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO DEAL WITH THEM LOCKS THINGIES! THAT WOULD SIMPLY BOWL THEM OVER! WHY, YOU DESERVE A MEDAL FOR SUCH A BRILLIANTLY THOUGHT OUT PLAN! THOSE SILLY, SILLY MOLESTED KIDS! PERHAPS NEXT YOU CAN FIGURE A WAY TO PROTECT LITTLE BOYS FROM THOSE NAUGHTY CATHOLIC PRIESTS!
NOT! References to classic literature do not make your book look "deep". Calling a fucking teenage fling equivalent to the Great Gatsby is horrifying? Did she read that book? Are you fucking kidding? The only thing I feel glad of is that there weren't any Wuthering Heights references (about Cathy and Heathcliff's steamy "love affair".) This is a pet peeve of mine. IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK AUTHORS TO READ THE BOOKS THEY REFERENCE?!
The most insane thing, though, the reason given why she should go home is because "anything is possible". No kidding. So her family thinks she's a psychopath and her mother thinks she causes cancer but there is a chance that some magical fairy is going to float around and sprinkle happy family dust over everyone and they'll all be happy together MAYBE. That that chance, the incredibly improbable wish, is good enough for her to stay in an abusive situation because WHO KNOWS?!
WTF IS THAT?
This is what I (honestly) felt when I finished it. I do mean honestly. I'm not being overly dramatic.
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This went to a decent coming-of-age story to a fucked up, purple prose encrusted morality tale. Morality tales... Yup, another pet peeve of mine....more
**spoiler alert** This was so terrible. This read like a preschooler's attempt at writing a thriller/horror story. It truly did. For most of this, I w**spoiler alert** This was so terrible. This read like a preschooler's attempt at writing a thriller/horror story. It truly did. For most of this, I was just rolling my eyes. And the thing it truly reminded me the most about was Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny. I'm not kidding.
Basically, some rich old guy likes to kidnap girls between the ages of 16 and 21. He puts a tattoo on their back of a butterfly but, other than having sex with one here or there (or letting his son do so), nothing much happens to them until he kills them when they turn 21. He then frames the body in this glass tomb that line the hallways of the house.
This could've been interesting, except it wasn't. Nothing really happens to these girls and they all just stay there. There's literally only 3 people, at the very most, that they come into contact with and one is an old man. One of the girls turn 21 and they all watch her, crying, as she's led to her death.
But there's literally nothing stop them from killing him or trying to break out. I guess if you try to break out and fail, he'll kill you, but he's going to kill you anyway. It's just so stupid. Who the fuck would just twiddle their thumbs for 5 years, waiting for death?
The author tries to make it more dramatic, I suppose, but fails even then. We're given the details of a hide-n-go seek game (these girls are, once again, 16 ~ 21) where one of the girls is chanting 'I can be strong' (supposedly to survive this place, I guess?) and she manages to kill herself falling out of the tree she hid in. That's the height of suspense this book.
You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking we should give this old dude a medal. If these girls are truly so stupid that 20 of them can't take on a single elderly man, then perhaps they deserve their fate. At least the stupid is getting out of the gene pool. You go, serial killer Hugh Hefner. ...more
I tried but this is simply bad. The technical writing part is okay. It's just the story itself. There really isn't a story here. Everything is so forcI tried but this is simply bad. The technical writing part is okay. It's just the story itself. There really isn't a story here. Everything is so forced and artificial to the point where you simply can't invest anymore. There is a lot of disbelief you have to suspend when it's horror AND more when it's ghostly in nature. This book managed to totally overflow even that huuuge lake of suspended disbelief.
Nothing the MC does is reasonable in any way. It's so bad that it throws you out of the story. It felt like the author had the story seed but simply didn't take the time to develop it correctly so everything she does is stupid. By "day 3", I truly was like 'damn it! why didn't that kill her?!'
For example, she's been in this house for 24 hours or so (she's housesitting) and she's been scared by scary noises she's heard. We're told she's TERRIFIED! So much that she flees the house and calls the homeowners.
So, hours after she flees the house (she's talked back in by the homeowner: 'old houses make lots of noises, etc.'), she is scared awake by a sound and a bad dream in the middle of the night. We're told she's scared. She can hear scary noises. Remember that scared part. So what does she do?
She decided, at 3am, to light a candle and explore this house she's supposedly scared of with ONLY A CANDLE. She was initially thinking that someone must be in the house with her. Who does this? I rolled my eyes when she's inevitably scared and drops the candle, thus losing all light. I saw this coming a MILE away. It was so forced! I rolled my eyes so hard I was afraid they'd fall out.
Or, not a couple hours later, she goes to a basement (that has no lights -- who builds a basement with no lights? Anyone? Come on now? There aren't even candle holders? REALLY?! Apparently the homeowners have EXCELLENT night vision), with only her cellphone (we apparently forgot that we have a flashlight and candles), only to see some ubber creepy occult thing that says some nonsense about the old owners.
Instead of thinking 'hey, perhaps they're just worried about all the deaths and thinking god has forsaken them like any normal family might', she decides she must go into the crypt out back to find this book that'll have secrets. This girl has literally spent only like 48 hours in this house. Only 48 or so hours and she's wanting to break into a freakin' grave for mysterious answers.
We get the knock-out scene that's an info dump of past events and on and on.
It's like one cliche after another. Horror is filled with cliche's but the fact that everything is artificial, everything is forced, and there is literally no reason for the MC to be doing anything in this book that makes it a terrible read.
This is the first book, in a very very long time, that I am DNF'ing because of the prose and not story. It's just so terrible. The repetitiveness of tThis is the first book, in a very very long time, that I am DNF'ing because of the prose and not story. It's just so terrible. The repetitiveness of the prose is so terrible. (See wut I did thar? ;)) The telling is even worse.
Why the hell did the author feel the need to repeat the MCs name over and over and over and (I know you're giving me side eyes for being dramatic, but I'm not) over again. In one paragraph, in a single paragraph of reasonable length (aka, not James Joyce or even single page long), the author felt the need to repeat the MCs name SEVEN times. There was no other character in the scene. I'm sorry but I can remember the characters name. I don't need the author to keep repeating herself.
As example, let me write the last sentence of a paragraph and the first of the very next one:
'Rachel made them her friends.
Rachel's favorite daydreams when she was a little girl were those in which her father, Daniel, was still alive and had come to take her and her mother somewhere fabulous.'
Was it necessary to repeat her name there? Are we going to forget from one milisecond to the next that her name is Rachel?...more
How did this book get such a high rating? No, wait, I've got one better: how is the same author that wrote Little Girls. I totally didn't like that boHow did this book get such a high rating? No, wait, I've got one better: how is the same author that wrote Little Girls. I totally didn't like that book but the writing is SO much better. What little plot there is shines in comparison.
This book is filled with horrible, stupid people. Not horrible in the sense that they get up to mischief, though. Sorry to break that to you. It's just... I have no words.
This is a small town and children are going missing left and right, while cattle is being mutilated. You'd think that would motivate SOMEONE into panicking, but nope. NOT EVEN THE CHILDREN'S PARENTS. I shit you not. Was there even one missing poster posted? So you have that.
And on the other side of things, you have utterly stupid and incompetent police officers. The police were written so badly that it made me wonder if the author knew even the bare bones minimum of police procedural. I truly mean this. This is so not the case of an author watching a ton of CSI.
Like, for example, they go to this woman's house because she basically said monsters killed her hubby. They get there, see a shotgun, see spent bullets, see what they thing is blood and other stuff. What does this police guy do? Oh, he picks up the shell with his bare hands. He scrapes his nails along what looks like it could be evidence. He asks the other officer to see if it looks the same as at the animal killings, and when the guy just shrugs, he's totally cool with ignoring it.
He doesn't call crime scene people in. He has his officer put on plastic gloves when handling the gun and he has to explain why he needs to do that. Like finger prints are things this officer has never heard of because.
It's going to rain but whatever. No pictures. No securing the scene. Nope. Let's just move along.
Oh, or like how he thinks he's found a dead kid so he orders his men to transport the body to the police station. What? No photos. No nothing. We'll just ruin the entire crime scene and send the body to a place that isn't equipt to deal with them.
You may read other reviews and these other reviews may say thNO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE!
My feelings after finishing this 'book':b
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You may read other reviews and these other reviews may say that this book has major plot holes. These accusations, my brothers and sisters, are LIES! All LIES!
In order to have plot holes, you must have a freakin' plot. There is no plot here thus there is no plot holes. It's basically just a girl going to HS and being forced to tutor a fish-man. We don't know why they're there. We don't know why they're even in the school.
Further, this book is so crammed with contradictions that it's hilarious. It truly. What tiny bit of 'plot' we get is almost always contradicted soon after it's told to us and these contradictions are so just terrible...
Okay. I know examples are the only way to do this.
1) Fish people decide their kids should go to the HS and push to have them included. The rest of the book has every fish person basically turning their noses up at the kids in this book. Fathom goes so far as to accuse Lyric of teach him and, thus, tainting and making him more human (and by extension making his people think he's too human.) Which is odd because HE'S IN A HUMAN SCHOOL! None of the humans want them there so it wasn't as if this was something the humans offered.
2) Lyric's mother is supposedly a spy only she never actually knew that. She was told to go have a family and then she's called a betrayer for doing so? What?
3) The Alpha decide enough is enough and say they're going to attack only to ... build a wall. Yeah.
The social structure of the Alpha's is utterly ridiculous too. It makes no sense. It's not to say that rulers didn't have to prove themselves but this wasn't done in such a stupid way (of fighting several battles everyday without any medical attention.)
There are only two redeeming things about this book. 1) the physical book is really pretty and 2) the physical book is really pretty....more
I found absolutely nothing in this book to be even remotely worthwhile. It's one horrifying mess from start to finish in just about every way possibleI found absolutely nothing in this book to be even remotely worthwhile. It's one horrifying mess from start to finish in just about every way possible. If I could give this book negative stars, I'd do that.
But I digress.
Let me start by saying I'm biased. I'm a character person. I'd go for a strong character with a weak plot over the alternative and the character thing is a large part of my, erm, hate. I love McGuire's books. She's on my short list to buy when they come out. I think I may be stopping that. Well then...
Let's start with Alex... I can't stand this character. I finished this book with the hope that Alex would die at the end. I truly did and that didn't happen... Well, a girl can dream. He's the most boostful character I've ever read. If he's not whining about his 'duties' and how he never asked for any of this, he's tell us how strong he is and smart he is and how much he's sacrificed and bleh bleh bleh.
When Alex goes into one of this internal dialogues, this song starts playing a loop in my head: I'm seriously not kidding.
If that's not enough, Alex leaps head first into a great many 'I told you so's. He's not obnoxious enough, right?
I've come to the conclusion that McGuire just can't write decent male POVs. They're all so cliche it hurts. Which is baffling because McGuire is such a good writer and male POV is universal. I mean, we're basically raised on male POV books from our first books and McGuire is just so utterly terrible at them. The men in her books that don't have a POV are great, which is another layer of bafflement.
The story is, to put it mildly, horrible and stupid. The plot basically hinges on everyone being complete and utter morons. Every plot turn is because someone did something stupid. The characters reactions to everything is stupid too. It's stupid on the level of 'how are they still alive.'
Here are some examples:
The leaders of this group have an arsenal of weapons and all that. Do they treat this with the seriousness it warrants? Of course not! How then would the plot continue? So what did they do with this arsenal? They gave every member of the organization free access to everything. Seriously. There's not even a 'fill out yourself' log.
WTF is that? I've worked many jobs and even my first job in a movie theater had more responsibility in the way we dealt with the discarded 5 cent cups that this group does. Of course, this becomes a plot point. OMG! Someone switched their ammo out with fakes. COULDN'T SEE THAT ONE COMING A MILE AWAY.
This brilliant group is brilliant. For a morgue, they have a metal shed with a lock. This shed isn't guarded and it's in the summer. This made it conveniently easy for the villain to escape. When Alex asked about this, he was told that this is where they 'put the bodies' until they can feed them to the alligators. Let's just forget the part where he's possibly infected and animals can catch it by eating the infected.
It would be a fun parody except McGuire was being serious. I can't tell if this book was just a contract book and she didn't give a fuck or if ... Well, no. She's a great author. This was definitely a contract book that she shit out and tossed to the publishers.
Besides the stupid that's EVERYWHERE, we also get major doses of deus ex machina and a morality tale. Seriously. Ridiculous amounts of deus ex machina. The mice are deus ex machina. At the end there, he's basically saved by (view spoiler)[a doorbell. Seriously. They start up all this 'we're GOING TO KEEL YOU DEAD! And then seriously stop to answer the fucking door (hide spoiler)]. At this point, you don't even care. It's so deus ex machina that you just it to end.
Then the morality bits are wonderful. If Alex wasn't obnoxious enough, we get his many, many, maaaaaaaaaaaaaany inner lectures about how terrible this group is for seeing the monsters as 'monsters'. Of course we get to the part where a 'monster' asks why Alex didn't kill them and Alex said, all innocent morality with shining eyes, 'but doesn't everyone deserve to live?' and we get another lecture from this 'monster' telling us how it's okay to kill these.
It brought back terrible memories of that horrible morality tale Card shoved in his book (where the lone character who wanted to save the planet turned around and said KILL THEM ALL and the people who had wanted to KILL THEM ALL get to shake their heads and share with this character that KILLING THEM ALL is a terrible thing.)
Now add all the above with a knowledge that the first 15% ~ 20% is spent largely on recapping what happened before and you start to suddenly wish you'd not learned how to read. I just can't anymore......more
There is no real way to describe how bad this book is. It defies logic. Nothing in this ... book makes any sense. The level of complete and utter incoThere is no real way to describe how bad this book is. It defies logic. Nothing in this ... book makes any sense. The level of complete and utter incompetence on the part of the police with the quick and utterly brilliant mind of the perp is just unbelievable. Especially considering the fact that the perp was caught red-handed in the most stupid way possible. It's not even slightly likely. Not even an tiny bit.
My feels when I finished this ... book:
[image]
So basically a girl is strangled and there is a hit and run. The hit and run happen first. Nothing actually happens in this book but the police shaking their heads in confusion. It took until the very end for the police to figure out where the hit and run victim lived, despite her apartment literally being right there. That's the level of police incompetence. The victim lived right there and the police didn't think that PERHAPS THE VICTIM MIGHT'VE LIVED RIGHT AROUND THAT AREA, SEEING AS SHE WAS WALKING AROUND AT NIGHT.
Wait, what am I thinking? Why, that's logical to work where the victim was found! We can't have any of that! No wonder that poor country has such a high murder rate (in novels.)
This is a bit of a spoiler but it's so stupid I have to spill this, so I'll cut it. (view spoiler)[
Basically, pervy guy tries to do things with a girl who runs away with his wallet. He hits the mother while in pursuit and is convinced the girl saw this so he decides to kill her. SOMEHOW he figures out that she's on a ship only... It's really her sister wearing the coat and he kills her.
This makes no sense because a) he doesn't even bother to clean or dump his car (that still has visible damage on it) and he even parks it on the street, b) he's calling the mother's home phone and c) he goes to the mother's house and tries to have his way with the girl (this is a non-issue in the book in case you're wondering. It happens in the last 5 pages and the police arrive just in time.) (hide spoiler)]
But beyond being terrible and illogical, this suffers from a greater sin: that of having a completely terrible plot and then highlighting it by stating 'this is deus ex machina, isn't it?' and having someone reply with 'but that only happens in books.'
WHY DO WRITERS DO THIS? Is there some magical charm that someone negates a deus ex machina if you state it in the book somewhere? Is it like a magical special that makes people realize that the deus ex machina really isn't all that bad now that the author spot-lighted it?
Holy INSTA-LOVE Batman! Jesus! He went from believing she was the killer because (and I'm not kidding) his ex-wife cheated on him and thus every womanHoly INSTA-LOVE Batman! Jesus! He went from believing she was the killer because (and I'm not kidding) his ex-wife cheated on him and thus every woman must be ... murderers? Is that how the logic goes? He went from that to head-over-heels in love in like 30 seconds.
And then they start this stupid relationship and all the while she's thinking how she liked that he's taking it slow... SLOW?! He kissed her like the day or the day following the Judge's murder. And then there's the marathon dating where they have dates every day of the week and (paraphrased) he's hoping their screwing their brains out by Friday.
This whole thing is bad. I'm disgusted with everyone save the family and the Judge. How old are these two? You'd think they were randy teens....more
Can I just say that I don't understand how people can like books like this? I mean, the kind where the 'hero' just wants to fuck (I'm using the 'plainCan I just say that I don't understand how people can like books like this? I mean, the kind where the 'hero' just wants to fuck (I'm using the 'plain' language of the books, who seem to think saying to word fuck is some kind of victory) the heroine and she's just like LOVE-AT-FIRST-SIGHT!
Basically, this is 50 Shades of Gray fanfiction with aliens...
Excuse me while I go puke everything I've eaten this week....more
Alisi � wants to read too many books �
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Books:
rue-the-day-you-learned-to-read
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