Partial Book Review: Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

I officially have a new least favorite book!  I actually haven’t even finished this one yet, but I wanted to start my review and list all the things that are really bugging me about this book.  If you haven’t heard of Hush Hush it may be because it is a bit of an older book, it was released in 2009 and the series has already concluded, but I normally prefer to read books once a series is over so I don’t have to deal with cliffhangers and waiting for the next book to be released.  I picked up Hush Hush because I first got the second in the series, Cresendo, at a used book sale and I ended up getting the actual book at Publix when it was the $5 copy released to celebrate the final book’s release, and it was 20% off. 

I didn’t know much about this book before I started reading.  I knew it had something to do with angels (after all, there is one on the cover), I knew it was a YA, and I knew it was immensely popular.  I am now more than half way through the book – I still have no idea what this book is about!

                There are so many things wrong with this book I don’t know where to start.  First off, the main character is Nora, she is defined as having all the characteristics that nice girls have.  Her best friend is Vee, and let’s just say that she is one of the worst best friends I have ever read about – and I read a lot of urban fantasy, best friends are very likely to stab you or try to eat you or often turn out to be demons in the books I read.  Vee essentially convinces Nora to do a lot of dumb things and at other times it feels as though Vee is just there to provide an alternate perspective. 

I really have so many issues with this book that I cannot think of any coherent way to describe them other than creating a list, so here we go: 

-          The story starts out with Nora getting a new lab partner – Patch.  Patch is annoying as heck and keeps annoying Nora in a way that would be considered sexual harassment in a working environment.  Despite the fact that he does this publically in front of the entire biology class, the teacher refuses Nora’s request to change partners . . . umm I’m pretty sure that if Patch were to attack Nora (which I’m sure we will see later on since I am currently reading the part where he chases her around a parking lot) that would mean that Nora (or her parents on her behalf) would be suing the school.  I love YA books, I understand that they have to work around the whole parents/teacher/authority figures thing sometimes to make the story work, but I feel that there are ways to do this realistically (see: Vampire Academy, Twilight, Percy Jackson, etc.).  

 

-          Nora makes no sense as a character to me.  At the beginning we are essentially told she is the quintessential nice girl – gets good grades, has a few good friends, is really pretty but doesn’t care, etc.  Yet we find out later that she has been skipping her meetings with the school psychiatrist.  Umm, how does that fit in with her original characterization?  I can she her skipping those meetings after going through some of the weird stuff in her life, but this was just one of those random things that was out of character and was generally unnecessary to move the plot along. 

 

-          Speaking of school psychiatrists, how is Nora (who is basically supposed to be playing the part of Nancy Drew in this book) not curious as to how the new school psychiatrist knows that Patch drove her home one night – when no one else knows!  This doesn’t bother her, yet she manages to create crazy theories based on no real evidence throughout the book. 

 

-          At some point, Nora feels as though she is being followed.  Vee does not believe her but decides that an appropriate action would be to put on Nora’s jacket (even though the two girls were described as being very different sizes and Vee should probably not have been able to fit into Nora’s jacket) and walk outside the store.  Nora is sure that she sees a female following Vee and long story short Vee is attacked and ends up in the hospital.  Now, we hear a lot from Nora’s point of view of how the attacker looks female to her.  But, after Nora goes to the library and reads an article about this guy that she knows and how he was questioned in the suicide of one of his old classmates (he recently transferred to Nora’s school) she decides that he must be the one who attacked Vee.  Meanwhile, Vee, who has been adamantly pushing Nora towards Patch, says that the attacker was more Patch sized and colored – therefore it must be Patch!  Have either one of these girls ever heard of logic?!? 

 

-          Also, Nora’s mom is one of the worst parents ever.  At least in Twilight (yes, I am using Twilight as a positive example – that is how frustrated with this book I am!) Charlie had good reasons for being absent, and Forks was known as being a safe town.  Here, Nora’s best friend just had to have a surgery done because she was attacked, as far as Nora’s mom knows – mugged, and yet, Nora is expected to walk home alone, in the dark, to her farmhouse (which is previously described as being really far out of the way from everything) by herself at night.  I understand that people work late – but this is really just too far out of reality, Nora’s mom is clearly not in a super high powered position. 

 

-          When did teenagers become so selfish?  Nora refrains from informing her mother that she called 911 because she thought someone was breaking into her house (also, seriously, the police didn’t call her mom themselves?) because her mom is thinking about selling the farmhouse to move somewhere cheaper so that she can be home more often.  Umm, last I checked most teenagers have enough common sense to be able to think critically about these situations.  I know when my family moved right before high school, and while I was in the middle of high school, I may not have liked it, but I was more than capable of understanding that my life/comfort/love for my house were not the number one priorities. 

 

-          I am half way through this book, and I still have no idea what it is about, why I should care about any of these characters – heck I don’t think any one of them has any redeeming qualities whatsoever.  I understand the author is trying to make some characters mysterious and all that, but you have to at least get me to like Nora and Patch and right now I kind of wish I could throw both of them off a cliff and be done with it. 

 

Okay, I think I am done ranting for now – I will probably put up another post when I actually finish the book (I just hate giving up on books, even when I hate them).  Right now, I am not seeing any redeeming qualities in this book, I’m hoping something good happens but I really don’t have high hopes at this point.