Realizations Inspired by a Bad Book

I have discovered:

About myself -
          If there is a book I'm supposed to read, and I don't want to read it, I will find any means to put off reading it. But out of guilt I will not read anything else either. Reading screeches to an unhappy, guilty stop.

About Jadyn -
          She can push through a section in a book that nearly killed me by with violent eye rolling, and quickly catch up to my book mark. She is perseverance in a bottle! I really expected her to "set it aside" and absolve me of having to finish the dang thang.

About my Mom -
          When I try to explain glaring, laughable plot holes to her, she will defend those holes, come up with wild scenarios to make them accurate, and then pull out of her butt the caliber of a handgun required to kill a bear in a single shot. ?!? Mom, what have you been doing since I moved out?

About my Friend -
          She will listen to my endless ranting and surround me with sympathy. Thank you Dear. You are an island of sanity for me.

About my Brother -
          He will immediately jump to the same conclusion as I did, and even use the same vocabulary as I did in my head. That I'm going to be blacklisted. Rock on.

About Everyone who had the Misfortune to Listen to
Me in the Last Few Days -
          That honesty is the best policy. This I know. I never had any intention of being less than honest (though perhaps had hoped to escape) but it does my heart good to hear that everyone values honesty so much.

Have you had any realizations lately?

Review: Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

Hush Hush
by Becca Fitzpatrick
YA, Paranormal
391 pages
published: 2009
1 of 5 stars

About (As if You Didn't Know)

Average-ish girl meets dark/handsome/mysterious boy in biology and her world is turned upsidedown. Here's goodreads if you want a "better" summary.

Reaction

*Spoilers - left and right! Duck!*
Observations:

• We'll just get his out there first: I didn't get so much of a rape vibe from Patch even though I was prepped for it and looking for it. What I got most was an 'I'm going to kill you...and enjoy it cuz you're oh so pretty, and cuz you're so dumb, you're going like it too' vibe. Nice.
• I wanted to like Nora. I wanted to feel bad for her. I wanted to be scared for her. I could not. That girl was too stupid to live. Go right ahead and die Nora. I don't care at all. But yes, run first, it's more enjoyable if you run.
• I know it was supposed to be dark and scary, but again, I couldn't be darked or scareded. It was only amusing.
• Patch has got to be the rudest, most condescending,  unlikeable, icky, insulting love interest I have ever encountered. Ew. Sorry Patch, I don't care about you either.
• The Twilight parallels were too obvious and ubiquitous to be anything but funny.
• World building flaws abounded.
• Can you say - too many bad guys? Geez. Everybody and their dog wanted a piece of that girl. I actually kept getting confused and had to stop and remind myself why this person wanted to kill her.
• Vee was the most annoying character. Just saying.
• Nora was the most inconsistent character I've ever read.
• There were several shotguns that were never fired. (1) Was her father really just murdered during a random act of violence? (2) What was up with that roller coaster?
• There are awfully low standards for getting one's wings back.

Things I Don't Get:

• I really don't mean to be terribly judgmental, but I don't understand how fear and arousal can exist at the same time. Unless you are messed up.
• Nora doesn't trust him, thinks he's speaking to her in her head, thinks he's going to kill her...AND YET runs off with him at every opportunity. Gack.
• Nora is upset and embarrassed about being a sex object - then ties a scarf around her chest and calls it a shirt. 
• How 'bout this dynamic: "I am restraining myself from killing you - see how much I love you?"
• If Patch fell for loving a mortal, how does he have wings at the end when he still loves a mortal?
• By what authority can a fallen angel tear the wings from a yet-to-fall angel? Mayhem! And how did that solve the problem anyway? Dabria could still show up and kill the stinkin' girl.
• Would a guy really want sex so bad if he couldn't feel it?
• If a fallen angel can only inhabit a body during what-ever-that-month-was and maybe only a half-angel's body (not real clear on that) how did Patch jump into Nora? I know, I know, it was hard and only lasted a little while, but if it was impossible before...
• How did Patch know Nora was a descendant?
• Why was Elliot still loyal to Jules when the original motivation was the money and staying at his rich school. That didn't work out...so why was he hanging around?
• I realize Jules was bent out of shape because Patch took his body for two weeks a year, but why was he SO upset about it? I mean, I'm pretty sure all Patch did was sleep around, which is basically all that Jules did. That's what he was doing when we first met him. And obviously Patch didn't keep too close a tabs on him during the rest of year. Melodrama much, Dude?
• Why is a mother whose husband was just murdered fine with leaving her daughter alone every night?
• Why does Vee's family let her go out the next day after a violent attack and surgery? Frankly, she would have been in too much pain to move.
• If killing Nora would give Patch everything he had wanted for hundred of years, why did he need opportunities to get closer? Why enroll in school? Why talk and date and pine? Why not just grab the useless mortal, run off and kill her?
• This dynamic is unfathomable: "You don't like me? You don't want to kiss/date/hang with me? Too bad! I'll pick you up at 5." "Oh okay. Let me slip into something completely revealing so you'll stop eyeballing me." Yes, I mentioned the scarf already. Sorry. But am I supposed to be romanticized because he is overbearing and forceful?
• Nora was scared out of her mind, but never told her Mom because that might mean moving. Hmm. Memories and the house were nice, but would anyone's survival instinct be over-ridden by that? 

I'm bored with this. Not a good book. Not a book impressionable girls should read. But please don't think I'm all worked up and HATE this book, because I'm not and I don't. I might well rant about type-cast love interests later, though. But we'll end on a positive note.

• I read this book in one evening. Fast read. Interesting. Morbidly so, but hey, a page turner is a page turner.
• It was amusing. 

Review: Hush by Donna Jo Napoli

Hush
by Donna Jo Napoli
YA, Folklore
308 pages (234 read)
piblished: 2007
For: Once Upon a Time Challenge
1 of 5 stars

About

Melkorka is a princess, the first daughter of a magnificent kingdom in medieval Ireland - but all of this is lost the day is kidnapped and taken aboard a marauding slave ship. Thrown into a world that she has never known, alongside people that her former country's lays regarded as less than human, Melkorka is forced to learn quickly how to survive. Taking a vow of silence, however, she finds herself an object of fascination to her captors and masters, and soon realizes that any power, no matter how little, can make a difference. - from the front book flap

Reaction

I did not finish this book.

This does not happen to me often. Not necessaily that I don't like, even occassionally hate, a book, but that I decide not to finish. Perhaps I'm a touch obsessive, or maybe a tad too loyal, but I feel like when I start to read a book I enter into a contract of sorts. The book fulfills its end of the contract by being and I fulfill mine by reading it. All of it. (Perhaps I am too easy on the book?) It is difficult for me to breach my contract, but that is what I have done.

Was it that bad? Not necessarily. Note I've still given it one star, not zero. The setting was fascinating, the characters interesting, some even lovable, and the plot compelling. Or at the least had the beginnings of compelling. And since I knew the kidnapping was coming, sometime, the beginning (which lasted longer than I thought it would) stretched to an almost unbearable tension. When I read about Melkorka's silence and the consequences, I was intrigued. The subtle plays for power and the will for self preservation were well done.

But as the story progressed at a leisurely pace, I just couldn't hack it. Last night, before I put it down for good, I wound up crying in my bed for the horror that is our world for the second time in a month. I am not tough enough. And that was before it all got worse.

*Spoiler Alert*
The horror that is slavery! The violence, the hopelessness, the cruelty, the rapes, the graphic descriptions of everything from hunger to menstrual blood. Then after reading some reviews on Goodreads and discovering that none of the questions would be answered and that the ending was nearly as hopeless as the rest... No. This book is not for me.
*Spoiler Over*

Please don't stop and tell me that not everything has happy endings. I know this. I accept this. And I truly think there is great value in reading about "unhappiness," from education to learning empathy. (And I read many hard books and love them and find great personal value in them.) But for me, whatever value I may have gleaned from this story was outweighed by the price I was paying to my well-being.

Many may appreciate this story. It is based on Icelandic tale. And it feels real. No softening. No apologies. If you like that, and are tougher than me (which most of you surely are), than I would recommend this book. Just keep in mind it is not for younger teens.

Now I am going to find some books about dancing daisies and bunny slippers. I need a break.