FINN-tastic!

Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
My feelings on Becca Fitzpatrick’s HUSH, HUSH are incredibly mixed. One one hand, I dig the idea — fallen angels are right up my alley, much more so than vampires have ever been. I thought perhaps Fitzpatrick would offer me something new. Something Twilight-esque, but wholly different. Original.

FAIL.

(spoiler alert from here on)

In the cool chill of Maine, Nora Grey is a high school student failing biology when she ends up getting paired up with Patch Cipriano, a transfer student who possesses a mysterious and bad-ass aura. Nora, typically, dislikes him on sight as he proves to be an unnerving bio lab partner, seemingly more interested in her than in the subject at hand.

(Hm, if I’m not mistaken, didn’t Edward Cullen and Bella Swan also get paired up in bio? Only Bella was the transfer student?)

The novel opens up with what I thought was a pretty intriguing prologue. A boy with a deep, dark and ugly upside down V-shaped scar marring his back, a fallen — perhaps dark and deadly — angel with the power to bend lesser beings (in this case, a Nephilim – a half-breed human/angel hybrid) to his will! OOH. Awesome.

Flip the page. Present day, biology. Introduce best friend whom I immediately dislike because her name is, of all things, VEE SKY and she doesn’t come across as snarky and clever or even the “fun bitch”. She came across as bitchy and kind of mean, really self-centered which continues throughout the novel. I was rooting for a friendship breakup the entire novel long.

From there, it just got progressively worse. The novel couldn’t hold my interest. I read along just to find Patch again, because he was the most interesting character in the entire cast. The heroine annoyed me because she had a tendency to jump to conclusions without examining the evidence, she was gullible and over-emotional. Not to say teens are not that way, but she would flip the switch constantly between liking Patch and being afraid of Patch. Her feelings for him were not necessarily described as constant. Sure, she was fascinated by him, but she was also very quick to accuse him of things or believe the worst.

Not until another boy, Elliot, comes around with his recalcitrant friend Jules, looking like the better choice, when he so obviously is *not*. I went along with Nora because I understand that we can sometimes fail to spot the bad seed right away. This happens early on in the novel when I could sometimes forgive her for her naivete.

Thankfully, she wised up and started to become suspicious of him, but her friend Vee sings Elliot and Jules’ praises the whole way. By the time Elliot gets a little rough with Nora in his attempt to get her to go on a camping trip, I was extremely disappointed that Nora’s so-called best friend opted to disregard Nora’s safety in favor of standing with the boys she is so crazy about.

Granted, some girls are like that. But how can I respect a best friend who isn’t listening when her BFF tells her that she was basically assaulted? How can I recognize her as a “smart/savvy” teen when she basically leaps into dangerous situations without a second thought? Do teens sometimes do this? Yes, but even so, I want to see a strong female heroine and at least a BFF that’s worth the heroine’s friendship. Throughout the novel, I found little evidence of this.

Then, there’s the romance bit. Most of the time, I remained unconvinced that these two would find their way to one another. It seemed like a one-sided romance. Patch was interested, Nora was sort of interested but not and she leapfrogged all over the place with her emotions. By the time these two do hook up, I found it hard to believe… and that, in turn, made the novel’s climax incredibly challenging for me to buy into.

Mind you, I actually started out excited to read this book. But my excitement quickly wore thin and I was desperately trying to make my way to the end—not because I HAD TO KNOW and was driven by that captivating spell that a good story can weave around me—but because it felt incredibly pointless. By page 200, I’m annoyed that I haven’t seen this angel that I saw in the beginning. (I wondered if it was Patch or Elliot, which seems to be the point). The mystery bothered me because you knew it was coming and the author was withholding it for such a prolonged amount of time.

Only when I get more time with Patch and finally get some answers as to who he is/etc (page 300), am I finally more INTERESTED in the novel. I read the final 100 pages faster than I read the first 200… and in my mind, that tells me there’s something missing from the first 200.

The conflict in the novel is predictable, and by the time I was nearing the end, the Twilight-ish-ness of the book was starting to grate on my nerves. There’s even a line where Patch says something equivalent to Edwards “What if I’m not the hero; what if I’m the bad guy?” <i>Yes, really.</i>

The heroine says the same line (with a slight change) to the villians at two separate turns… and since it’s a line meant to provide some defense… It was rather irritating to see that she could not be more creative on the spot.

Another nitpicky thing: every single teen (outside of Patch) that provides service (a waitress, a movie ticket cashier) doles out rude remarks and is generally apathetic… sometimes a bit aggressive. That also bothered me because not every server is like that, and it seemed to be a stereotype the author worked in intentionally.

As a whole, the book isn’t terrible but definitely fell short of my hopes. I know that I’m being uncharacteristically harsh with my criticism, but I do plan to read the second book in an effort to see how Fitzpatrick might evolve the relationship between Nora and Patch. I still maintain that Patch is the SOLE reason I finished the novel, because every other character annoyed me. And for Patch alone will I give the second novel a chance.

For a more detailed look at HUSH, HUSH and it’s Twilight similarities (and a more detailed and comprehensive book review — because, let’s face it, I tend to ramble disjointedly), check out Katiebabs’ thoughts.

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