Tag: 2 stars

Book Review: Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick

M.T.Wilson @ The Last Book on the LeftLeave a comment

Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Romance

Publishing Info: October 2011 by Simon and Schuster

Pages: 438

Star Rating: 2/5

Back Cover Summary:

The noise between Patch and Nora is gone. They’ve overcome the secrets riddled in Patch’s dark past…bridged two irreconcilable worlds…faced heart-wrenching tests of betrayal, loyalty and trust…and all for a love that will transcend the boundary between heaven and earth. Armed with nothing but their absolute faith in one another, Patch and Nora enter a desperate fight to stop a villain who holds the power to shatter everything they’ve worked for–and their love–forever.

Silence is the third book in the Hush, Hush series and was, unfortunately, a disappointment. I loved the first two books in the series (Hush, Hush and Crescendo) but Silence was a complete let down. This will be a short review, since, well, nothing much happened.

I don’t want to spoil anything so won’t say too much, but basically Nora loses her memory of the last several months and is trying to find out who kidnapped her and remember everything that happened. This is incredibly frustrating because as the reader you already know what happened to her. It wasn’t too bad for me as it had been several months since I read the second book so couldn’t remember everything anyway. But if you read it straight after it would be so frustrating and boring. The memory loss isn’t even a vital part of the plot! It seems like Fitzpatrick just flung it in for the fun of it. To be honest, the majority of the book could have been scrapped and the small amount that was necessary put on the beginning of book four.

What I liked most about the first two books was the mystery. It wasn’t just a paranormal/romance, it actually had a large element of the mystery genre which kept me intrigued. There wasn’t any of that in Silence (unless you count the pointless memory loss plot device which backfired). Barely anything actually happened in the book. There was a little bit of excitement and intrigue in the last two chapters but other than that it was pretty eventless (bar maybe two other scene – no spoilers).

Furthermore, Nora was at her worst in this book. She spent most of her time being a whiny damsel in distress. There is one thing that has dismayed me throughout the series, and that is why on Earth Nora fell in love with Patch. He is incredibly devoid of personality and a bit creepy. He doesn’t improve in the third book at all.

I don’t have much else to say other than that I don’t want to put you off the first two books, as they were very good. I hope this is just a blip and that the fourth (and last) book will be an improvement.

Book Review: Matched by Ally Condie

M.T.Wilson @ The Last Book on the LeftLeave a comment

Matched by Ally Condie

Genre: Young Adult, Dystopia, Romance

Publishing Info: Penguin 2 June 2011

Pages: 384

Star Rating: 2/5

 

Back Cover Summary:

On her seventeenth birthday, Cassia meets her Match. Society dictates he is her perfect partner for life.

Except he’s not.

In Cassia’s society, Officials decide who people love.

How many children they have.

Where they work.

When they die.

But, as Cassia finds herself falling in love with another boy, she is determined to make some choices of her own.

And that’s when her whole world begins to unravel . . .

 

I’m going to be honest and say this book disappointed me. It had such potential but failed to meet it on pretty much all accounts. Generally, I’m rarely disappointed by books and have never given a book below 3 stars before, until now of course.

What really intrigued me about the book was the setting – it was such an interesting setting which rung a little like 1984. However, I didn’t really get a feel for the setting and there were lots of terms such as “Aberration” and “Infraction” which weren’t properly explained which left me feeling quite confused.

As I read, I kept thinking ‘It’ll get better, just keep going, something exciting will happen!’. But to be honest – it didn’t. Not much really happened. The only thing that really kept me reading was the hope that something big was going to happen. There was only really one subplot and it wasn’t exactly gripping. It was just a very uneventful book.

One of the worst things about it was how dull it was. I didn’t connect with the characters at all. There wasn’t really anything wrong with their characters themselves, I just felt they weren’t developed well at all and the romance fell flat. I felt no connection between Cassia and Ky at all. I never really felt for the characters. There was only really one scene which made me feel any emotion towards the characters and their situation. One thing I didn’t like was the narrative and Cassia’s inner thoughts – they seemed very unreal to me, she seemed to look way too in depth at everything in a way that is just completely unrealistic.

Well, now for a little paragraph of things I did like. I loved the way Condie used the telling of the poetry and of Ky’s story and it made me sad every time she had to incinerate a part of something she had been given by these people she loved so. The relationship between Cassia and her family was very well written – I really believed that they cared for each other and Bram was written very well also. I found the concept of the blue, green and red pills very interesting and wanted to know what the red pill would do (and thankfully, unlike so much of the rest of the book, I was not disappointed but I won’t give any spoilers). There was one good thing about the silly love triangle that seems to be a necessity in Young Adult literature: the ‘love interests’ were normal, nice guys who were Cassia’s friends. So often at least one of the love interests is actually horrible or cocky or something. I could actually believe that Cassia would fall for Ky or Xander, unlike so many of the other ‘love interests’ in YA novels. I also quite liked the writing style, it’s just a shame the plot didn’t live up to its potential.

Overall I felt this was a very average, bordering on dull, book. It didn’t keep my attention and the plot and romance fell very flat. I don’t know whether or not I’ll be reading the sequel, Crossed, but most likely I will not.