Hush, Hush

Hush, Hush #1

by Becca Fitzpatrick, Caitlin Greer (Narrator)

Nora Grey is responsible and smart and not inclined to be reckless. Her first mistake was falling for Patch. Patch has made countless mistakes and has a past that could be called anything but harmless. The best thing he ever did was fall for Nora. After getting paired together in biology, all Nora wants to do is stay away from Patch, but he always seems to be two steps ahead of her. She can feel his eyes on her even when he is nowhere around. She feels him nearby even when she is alone in her bedroom. And when her attraction can be denied no longer, she learns the secret about who Patch is and what led him to her, as well as the dark path he is about to lead her down. Despite all the questions she has about his past, in the end, there may be only one question they can ask each other: How far are you willing to fall?

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance, Paranormal, Angels, Paranormal Romance, Fiction

9 pages, Audio CD

First published October 13, 2009

About the author

Becca Fitzpatrick grew up reading Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden with a flashlight under the covers. She graduated college with a degree in health, which she promptly abandoned for storytelling. When not writing, she's most likely prowling sale racks for reject shoes, running, or watching crime dramas on TV. She is the author of the bestselling HUSH, HUSH Saga. Her new book BLACK ICE arrives in bookstores everywhere October 7, 2014.

Reviews

[Misty · Rating 1 out of 5]

NOW WITH SPOILERY RANT @ BOTTOM!

Hush, Hush is the story of Nora Grey, an average high school student going about her business as usual -- until her Biology teacher rearranges the class seating and places her next to the dangerous-looking new kid, Patch Cipriano.  Nora gets a weird feeling from Patch, and things just keep going from bad to worse as Nora becomes convinced that she is being stalked, and may even be the target of murderous intentions.  Add to the list Nora's strange feelings about the Archangel ride at the amusement park and her constant near death experiences, and well, Nora's life is becoming anything but average.

When I finished reading Hush, Hush, I had to mull it over for awhile.  I really wasn't sure what to say.  I am absolutely enthralled by the cover (athletic looking, darkly mysterious fallen angel, contorted in mid-air in grayscale?  What's not to like?).  I had to have it because of that cover*.  But I had a sneaking suspicion that a cover that good had to be masking something.  Yep.  It's a bright light to dazzle the eyes and make you *ahem* overlook any faults.
It didn't work.

Inside was the most confused, schizophrenic piece of writing I've read in some time.  Becca Fitzpatrick didn't seem to know quite what she wanted, only that it had to be Ominous and Scary and Dangerous -- and Titillating, of course, and Mysterious and Sexy.  So with those buzz words in mind, she threw a bunch of things together and let her narrator, Nora, sort them out. Nora, understandably, had some trouble with this, and the result is a thoroughly frustrating heroine who jumps to insane conclusions based on inane evidence one moment, and the next goes blithely along into obvious danger.

Patch is intriguing, and perhaps the most consistent character**, and I was fully prepared for an 'anti-hero as the hero' story.  I wanted a little boundary-pushing and a not entirely likeable or trustworthy male lead who may or may not redeem himself, but who gives you the dangerous and alluring in spades.  For the most part, Patch wasn't a let-down in this regard, and as screwed up as it is to like him, he was the stand-out character for me. (Not to say I didn't have issues with him, too.)

But it wasn't enough.  Patch's bad boy antics couldn't save this book from itself.  It was self-indulgent, cheesy, melodramatic in the worst sense, and confusing. I wanted to like it; I loved the fallen angel premise, the idea of an anti-hero, and bits and pieces of the writing throughout.  But Hush, Hush suffered from too many villains and too much shock and awe, and not enough thought and follow-through.  Maybe Fitzpatrick can pull it together for round two, and with some strong convincing by trusted, like-minded people, I may be willing to give her another chance  (never gonna happen). But this was a monstrous let-down for me.  You've been warned.***


*We all know how that whole so-pretty-I-just-had-to thing works out.  See my guest post on Jo's blog about this.
**And by 'consistent' I mean he was consistently a douche. Vee was pretty consistent too, and was a lot of fun, but she started to get annoying and a little strange...
***You're still going to read it, aren't you?  Damn you, James Porto and your beautiful, beautiful cover!

***HERE THAR BE SPOILERS***

If you haven't read Hush, Hush and intend to, or if you don't want me dissing the melodrama that is Patch and Nora, look away....NOW!


Commence rant:


You already know I had issues with this book. I think a lot of people are going to take offense to the idea of Patch as the hero, as teen girls' fantasy, just as they did with Edward in Twilight. Patch goes beyond the simple term "bad boy" in that yes, he does actually mean Nora harm. Consistently.

I'm not going to go into that, because frankly, I don't care. He can be an anti-hero all he wants, whatever. If that's where the story's going, fine. Most of my issues -- but not all -- lie with Nora.

Here's the thing:

Nora is that girl you yell at in the horror movie, the idiot that goes up the stairs instead of out the door, or reaches to turn over the downed bad guy just to make sure. We all know that's frustrating, but we've come to expect it in movies, and that dumb big-breasted, scantily clad girl normally gets killed off.

Nora is so much more frustrating than that.

The many sides of Nora: She continually suspects Patch (and Elliot, and just about everyone else in this story), and with good reason. However, she then continually ignores her instincts and puts herself in danger. In fact, she can't seem to agree with herself. She will think to herself that Patch is stalking her and trying to kill her, and then within pages think 'Oh, but he could never hurt me.' This just cycles and cycles throughout the story.

Also throughout the story, Nora makes insane jumps in logic -- whether they turn out to be true or not, it's not believable when she immediately jumps to the most bizarre conclusions and then acts on them. At the same time, she will be directly confronted with some piece of real evidence, something that would make a normal, non-fictional person take notice and say something's not right here -- and she will completely ignore it. It's like she's being willfully obtuse.

Examples:

* Early(ish) in the story, Nora hears a voice in her head and thinks Patch has "breached normal communication methods and could, at will, speak to me without ever opening his mouth." Naturally, she thinks she's delusional. Hearing your name and a few inane comments would make one think they are imagining things, and this I could buy. Even Nora not being exactly sure what happened and being creeped out I could buy. But she proceeds to ask Patch how he's able to speak directly to her mind, making her look like a loon.
I wouldn't be even all that bothered by this, if it was consistent throughout the story; if Nora either consistently thought that she was going crazy because of all the implausible things that are happening, I could buy it; if she wanted to prove she wasn't crazy and kept confronting Patch and sleuthing, I could buy it. It would be 1 solid choice on Becca Fitzpatrick's part. She could be the ultra-paranoid girl who thinks she's going crazy and jumps to conclusions about everything. Annoying, but doable. But to present this as if it's normal...and I'm out.

* Conversely, near the near the end of the story when the shit's really beginning to go down and nearly everyone has become a villain, Nora and Patch walk out of a movie theater to find that "...both the tires on the driver's side were flat: '"I can't believe it!" I said. "I drove over two nails?"'

O_O
???

She thinks she's being stalked, she thinks her best friend has been kidnapped by a teenaged murderer named Elliot, and by this point she thinks she's the target of not one but two murderous angels, and yet all she can come up with is that she ran over two nails? Come on! If Nora will jump to conclusions on the barest of evidence, how in hell does she not comprehend the obvious?

* Throughout the story, Nora thinks everyone's out to get her (she's right, but I'll get to that), especially Patch. Patch is Ominous, capital 'O', and yet...And yet, no matter how much Nora thinks he's badbadbad, she trusts him. Why?
Weirdest of all, when Nora confronts Patch about his intentions, he admits he wanted to kill her ; her reaction? 'I know Patch could never hurt me' -- and she trusts him implicitly from that point on. Really? The whole story, you've suspected him and been insistent that you should stay away on the barest of evidence, but once he's confessed his (albeit previous) intentions of murder, you trust him. Really . Her sudden bizarre trust of Patch comes too late for any real belief in their romance. Or her sanity.

There is no consistency in Nora's thinking. I just can't understand why Becca Fitzpatrick couldn't pick one Nora to write and stick with her.
She could have just always thought she was losing her mind; self-doubt would have been interesting, and made her root-forable.
If she had just been reckless and always convinced that yes, maybe something is a little off about Patch, but she still found herself attracted to him, it would have been interesting, and could have been used to slowly reveal the truth and up Nora's anxiety.
If Nora had just been naive and always convinced that everything was fine despite any indicators, it would have built tension.
But combining it all made Nora seem confused and a little off herself, and made the writing seem schizophrenic.


Too many villains: Fitzpatrick makes the rookie mistake of lack of restraint. Nora suspects everyone, and everyone does in fact seem to be a villain. This makes the book seem unfocused and sort of cheesy. When everyone is under suspicion, and everyone seems to be a bad guy, it makes it seem like no one really is. It's like if you use a really great word once or twice it's going to stand out. But if every word you use is some great, unusual word, none are going to stand out. There's no negative space, no background to make the focal point pop. Everywhere Nora turns, someone's trying to kill her. It just gets silly after awhile. Also, it has the added negative effect of making it hard for Fitzpatrick to "top" as it were. Where does she go from here? If there are 4 different people trying to kill Nora in book 1, how many people will there be out for blood in book 2? She didn't leave any room to grow the suspense.

Another bad thing about the amount of villains and Nora's instant suspicion (and the overall over-the-top nature of the book) was that there was precious little suspense. By giving everything away rather freely, Fitzpatrick deprived the reader of the slow build-up and the privilege of the mystery; we never got to have any suspicions of our own, or choose sides. There was too much in the way of ominous overtones, and not enough restraint.

On a side note, not that I'm calling Vee a villain, but even she became a little weird* as the story went on. It's one thing to be the wild and crazy girl in the best friends dynamic, but constantly trying to get your best friend alone with a guy who she says makes her uncomfortable, who she believes broke into her house and may be stalking her, and who she knows was a murder suspect is reckless beyond the pale, and shitty, shitty friendship.

*By which I mean she goes from being quirky and funny to a godawful, shitty friend. You know, for no other reason than apparently to help lure Nora into bad/ridiculous situations. Plot device: ☑

The writing overall: I saw glimpses in Fitzpatrick's writing that demonstrated how this could have been a good book. She does sexual tension and confrontation scenes fairly well, and there is some good humor. Vee -- in the beginning, at least, before she becomes a really reckless, really bad friend -- was pretty amusing as the traditional sidekick. Patch had great one-liners, both funny and smoldering.
But for all the occasional good, there was quite a bit in the way of bad. The dialogue was often stilted and weird. The analogies were completely out of left field. They were those turns of phrase that you can tell were used because they sounded cool, or because one was needed, but they don't mean anything, or they leave you thinking wtf? "His eyes looked like they didn't play by the rules." What does that even mean? What rules do eyes usually play by? Does he not blink? This is a mild example, but I got sick of making note of them. I got this really hit-and-miss feel about the writing and the language in the book. Pieces of literary crap mixed in with the really good bits blended to form a "throw it all in and something's bound to work" style. A total lack of finesse made it hard to want to keep reading -- and made me feel like if I kept rolling my eyeballs, they were going to roll right out of my head.


Rant complete.

[Kat Kennedy · Rating 1 out of 5]

How I Would Have Ended It

*This post was inspired by the fan­tas­tic videos over at www.howitshouldhaveended.com. Ital­i­cized text is the orig­i­nal pub­li­cized text from the book and is entirely the work of Becca Fitzpatrick.

This ren­di­tion is entirely satire. It is not meant to offend and I mean no dis­cour­tesy. I rec­og­nize that authors put a lot of time and work into their nov­els and I am not try­ing to dis­re­spect that. Writ­ing a novel is hard work and is some­thing I have never done and I cer­tainly don’t think I could do a bet­ter job. I am sim­ply, with light-hearted inten­tion, using humour and imag­i­na­tion to spark book dis­cus­sion and fun and point out some issues I had with the novel.

And lastly, please don’t sue me. I have no money. And I have chil­dren to feed. And I have a cat to feed as well. You wouldn’t want a cat to go with­out food, would you? Also, pretty please with a cherry on top. I’ll be your friend?*


I was backed up against the counter, my palms dig­ging into the edge. “You’re mad because I didn’t go to Del­phic.” I raised one shaky shoul­der. “Why Del­phic, Patch? It’s Sun­day night. Del­phic will be clos­ing soon. Any spe­cial rea­son you wanted me to drive to a dark, soon-to-be deserted amuse­ment park?”

He walked toward me until he was stand­ing close enough that I could see his black eyes beneath his ball cap.

“Dabria told me you have to sac­ri­fice me to get a human body,” I said.

Patch was quiet a moment. “And you think I’d go through with it?”

I swal­lowed. “Then it’s true?”

Our eyes locked. “It has to be an inten­tional sac­ri­fice. Sim­ply killing you won’t do it.”

“Are you the only per­son who can do this to me?”

“No, but I’m prob­a­bly the only per­son who knows the end result, and the only per­son who would attempt it. It’s the rea­son I came to school. I had to get close to you. I needed you. It’s the rea­son I walked into your life.”

I looked at him for a moment, his intense gaze shoot­ing through me as I con­sid­ered the infor­ma­tion he’d just confirmed.

“Okay,” I said, straight­en­ing up and slip­ping out from his over­bear­ing pres­ence to put some space between us.

“Okay?”

“Okay, I’m out of here.”

“You can’t go!” Patch said, his face twist­ing into a con­fused expression.

“Well, you’ve pretty much admit­ted that you were going to kill me, in a very per­sonal way, might I add. I think that jus­ti­fies a quick and hasty exit,” I spat at him, straight­en­ing my out­fit in indig­na­tion and stand­ing up to him with more con­fi­dence than I felt.

Patch splut­tered for a moment, blink­ing his eyes dis­be­liev­ingly. “But… I wasn’t… I mean…” he looked lost for a moment before vis­i­bly col­lect­ing him­self and slip­ping back into his usual, con­fi­dent demeanor. “You want me to come clean, I will. I’ll tell you every­thing. Who I am and what I’ve done. Every last detail. I’ll dig it all up, but you have to ask. You have to want it. You can see who I was, or you can see who I am now. I’m not good,” he said, pierc­ing me with eyes that absorbed all light but reflected none, “but I was worse.”

I arched an eye­brow and stared at him in dis­be­lief. “Well, I have a dif­fer­ent plan, Patch. Mainly revolv­ing around the fact that you pur­posely entered my life in order to stalk, harass and mur­der me for your nefar­i­ous schemes. So I think this would be a pretty good time for you to quit the mys­te­ri­ous bull­shit and be extremely trans­par­ent about every­thing I need to know. I mean, you haven’t even assured me, at this point, that you’re not actu­ally going to kill me. And I don’t mean to harp on this point – but that’s a pretty impor­tant facet of this dis­cus­sion for me.”

He stalked close to me again, affect­ing a brood­ing, intense expres­sion and caus­ing my heart to thud painfully in my chest. His boots were flush with the toes of my ten­nis shoes. “I’m not going to kill you, Nora. I don’t kill peo­ple who are impor­tant to me. And you top the list.”

I exerted con­sid­er­able effort to con­tain an eye­roll, but it slipped through at the last minute. “You’re imping­ing on my pri­vate space,” I said, inch­ing back­ward in dis­taste.

Patch gave a barely-there smile. “Imping­ing? This isn’t the SAT, Nora.”

I pressed my finger-tips to his chest. He glanced at the spot where we touched and then back up to my eyes. “If my vocab­u­lary is caus­ing you dis­tress,” I whis­pered huskily, look­ing up to him with a wicked smile on my face, “then let me express my dis­plea­sure in the only way you seem to understand.”

Patch’s brow creased in con­fu­sion a moment before my heel came down hard on his instep. He hopped back in pain, look­ing at me with both hurt and bewil­der­ment. “Per­sonal bound­aries, Patch. Respect them when I ask you to. See, I have this rule about let­ting would-be mur­der­ers within ten feet of my very stab-able body. Now, tell me. Is Dabria going to be com­ing after me.”

Patch, mirac­u­lously less inter­ested in encroach­ing on my per­sonal space, shrugged from where he was. “You could take her, Angel,” he said. “I’ve seen both of you in action,” he looked down at his injured foot and winked, “and my bet’s on you. You don’t need me for that.”

“I don’t think I need you for much of any­thing,” I sneered, turn­ing on him and head­ing to the door.

“Door’s locked,” he said from behind me. “And we have unfin­ished business.”

“Lis­ten, the only unfin­ished busi­ness we have is between my knee and your crotch if you come near me again.”

The cell phone in my pocket rang to life. “In fact,” I said as I pulled it out, “you’re going to go away and I don’t ever, EVER want to see your broody, mopey face again. You have for­ever cured me of bad­boys. When this is over, it’s strictly account­ing nerds and bank­ing types for me! This was absolutely the WORST way to pun­ish my mother for her absence, assert my inde­pen­dence and act out my grief from los­ing my father. I should have just stolen money from my mother’s purse and bought alco­hol like a NORMAL teenager!” I pressed the accept but­ton on my cell. “What?!”

“Babe!” Vee said. We had a bad con­nec­tion, the crack­led of sta­tic cut­ting across her voice. “Where are you?”

“Where are you? Are you still with Elliot and Jules?” I flat­tened a hand against my free ear to hear better.

“I’m at school. We broke in,” she said in a voice that was naughty to per­fec­tion. “We want to play hide-and-seek but don’t have enough peo­ple for two teams. So… do you know of a fourth per­son who could come play with us?”

An inco­her­ent voice mum­bled in the background.

“Elliot wants me to tell you that if you don’t come be his part­ner –hang on- what?” Vee said into the background.

Elliot’s voice came on. “Nora? Come play with us. Oth­er­wise, there’s a tree in the com­mon area with Vee’s name on it.”

I groaned in dis­be­lief and promised myself that if I sur­vived this, I’d choose friends who weren’t com­plete and utter dumbasses.

“Who was that?” Patch asked.

I sighed heav­ily. “That was my brain­less, drop­kick friend phon­ing me to pass along the mes­sage that Elliot and Jules are going to mur­der her vio­lently unless I go meet up with them.”

“What was that you were say­ing about never again see­ing my broody, mop­ing face?” Patch asked, his con­fi­dence returned tri­fold and an enor­mous grin spread across his face.

I resisted the urge to smash my face into the tiled wall repeat­edly. “Oh, shut up and come on. I’ll prob­a­bly end up nobly sac­ri­fic­ing myself and sav­ing your ass any­way, so cut the shit, Patch.”

He unlocked and opened the door, let­ting me out ahead of him.

“Still going to set­tle for an accoun­tant or banker?”

“You had bet­ter be so damn awe­some in bed or I am going to stab you through the eye with your own lit­er­al­ized ego.”

“I have ninety-nine prob­lems, Nora, but per­for­mance in the sack is NOT one of them.”

The end.

[Nataliya · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this ON A DARE (a double-dog one, if you must know). And now I want to look it in the eye and ask - REALLY, BOOK? REALLY? Because it doesn't just cross the line into the uncomfortably creepy territory - it takes a cosmic leap over it.


Hush, Hush may have the dubious distinction of being the worst book I've ever read. (I assumed it's a book since that's what you'd call a bunch of printed and bound pages, but I'm really applying the term 'book' loosely here). Yes, I know I'm not the intended audience, but should terribly written books that can only aspire to reach the same literary heights as the word-of-the-day toilet paper even HAVE a target audience??? Yes, I'm being harsh. But I'm also being honest. Let me give you a sample of my complaints (all of them would be longer than the allowed review space).

This book reads as though someone read Twilight, appreciated the obviously marketable and profitable premise, and decided to rewrite it in an "edgier" way - which boiled down to clumsily asking a question, "What did Twilight lack?" and coming up with the answer, "Sexual creepiness bordering on sexual harrassment. That's it. LLLLLLadies."

Meet Nora Grey, an 'average' high-schooler who meets a mysterious boy Patch in biology. By the way, my (future hypothetical) daughter will not be allowed to take high school biology since that's where all potential supernatural creeps appear to lurk, looking for gullible teenage-girl prey. The boy acts like a total jerk to her, and his sleazy innuendos are alarming and appalling but not charming or witty or sexy. The natural things to do would be: (a) tell him off, (b) tell the school officials, and (c) call the police if the d-bag does not stop harrassing you. Instead, Nora Grey decides to madly fall in love with the jerk. (*)

* Dear teenage girls! "He hates me - therefore it means he loves me" approach does not work in real life. While we're at it - PEOPLE WANTING TO KILL YOU IS NOT SEXY EITHER. Dear YA authors, please stop perpetuating this idiocy.

Patch is a fallen angel (no spoilers, it was stated on page one or so) with a dark past. But basically he is an entitled arrogant jerk who appears to take immense pleasure in publicly humiliating Nora, physically forcing himself on her, physically intimidating her, ignoring her wishes, and gloating in his dripping douchebaggery approach while nearly sexually assaulting her in front of the class. “I make you uneasy?” he asks. The proper answer would be to scream, "YES! NOW BACK AWAY!!!!"

** **

But for some inexplicable reason Nora is in love with the creep. For some inexplicable reason, his appalling behavior is presented as alluring and seductive. For some inexplicable reason, he is presented as a "dark and dangerous" man of every girl's dream. WHYYYYYYYYYYY????? Oh nevermind, here's the answer:

"Yes, actually, he had that effect on me. He also had the tendency to wipe all logical thought from my mind."
"My brain couldn’t process one logical thought."

This may explain why we get pages and pages of this incoherent lovestruck bumbling masquerading as a book! Mystery solved, my job here is done.
**********************************

While I'm on the soapbox, let me say this - STALKING IS NOT SEXY. STALKING IS NOT OKAY. STALKING IS NOT LOVE. VIOLATING PRIVACY IS NOT LOVE EITHER and should result in a restraining order You see, our wonderful Nora thinks it's perfectly okay to learn about the mysterious new boy by breaking into the students' records office to look at the confidential file (she does it by calling in a bomb threat - which is (a) awful, (b) promptly forgotten about and never followed up on), and spying at him at work, snooping for information from his coworkers. I hate the message this book is sending.

***********************************
I hate punctuation abuse. It's innocent, so stop torturing it. Please... leave... the... faux-dramatic-pause ... ellipses ... in ... your... fanfiction... please. Unless you're paid for each ellipsis used. End... the... ellipses... abuse...
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

***************************
What is up with the sloppy writing that assumes describing small insignificant and frankly boring details adds anything to the story? Why am I subjected to the endless details of what exactly the characters are ordering in a Mexican restaurant, what the specials are, and how long it takes a waitress to bring the order? Why should I care? Why do I need to know the details of the bra design that the girls are shopping for? How exactly does that enrich the story? Please stop the filler. It's awful.
*****************************


Hey, and what with not having the slightest trust in the readers' ability to figure things out? What's with the dropping of anvil-sized hints every few pages? What happened to simple foreshadowing? Patch's identity, the villain's identity, Nora's identity - we can figure it out without the author SCREAMING hints into our faces. Really. Trust me.
*****************************
But in the end, despite the awfulness, I cannot be upset at Nora - mainly because I'm really worried about that girl's health. Here's why:

"My heart fumbled a beat [...]"
"My heartbeat turned erratic, and I told myself to pull it together."
"My heart did an unexpected flip, startled by his bizarrely attractive smile."

Nora, you know what you need instead of a creepy boyfriend? A cardiology consult. Your heart sounds unhealthy to me.

-----------------------------------
Terrible book with lackluster annoying characters, ridiculous plot, and bad writing, but with overabundance of creepiness. 1 star because that's the lowest rating I can give. Reading it was a miserable experience.
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4.0 rating on Goodreads? Really? Sometimes I really wonder whether I'm reading the same book as everyone else.

[Megan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Top Ten Irrational Points in hush, hush

Nora’s sex ed class begins with the teacher stating, “Human reproduction…requires mature handling. And like all science, the best approach is to learn by sleuthing. For the rest of the class, practice this technique by finding out as much as you can about your new (seating assignment) partner. Tomorrow, bring your write-up of your discoveries, and believe me, I’m going to check for authenticity…I want to see real interaction and teamwork.” This is a biology class! Teaching kids how to get to know one another reflects the teaching of the science of human reproduction how???? The next day, class focuses on what qualities each student looks for in a “potential mate” and the nuances of body language when hitting on someone. Again, this is Bio! Not health, not ~ well I don’t know what cause I never took a class this ridiculous. But I took a lot of sciences, and this ain’t it.

Later on in the book, the Bio class is “running a lab on blood pressure.” Uh… that has nothing to do with high school biology! And even less to do with human reproduction. WTF? Furthermore, in the blood pressure lab, “Vee is lying faceup on a table.” Argh! Those lab tables are filthy. Chemicals, dissections… kids are not allowed to sit on them, much less lay on them. And, really unless you are checking orthostatic BP, there is really no need to lie down for five minutes before hand! All I can say is that Becca Fitzpatrick must have been homeschooled.

Later, Nora approaches her Bio teacher about switching her seat away from Patch because he makes her feel uncomfortable. The teacher not only ignores her plea, but enlists her to tutor Patch. This all takes place right after Patch is seriously sexually harassing Nora in class, in front of the teacher and seemingly with the teacher’s encouragement. More support for the homeschooled theory!

Nora is driving home one night, and approaches a traffic light. The light turns yellow and Nora, ”…rolled to a stop, checked to see that traffic was clear, then pulled into the intersection.” What the hell? Who stops at a yellow light to see if traffic is clear?? Why wouldn’t it be when the other side still has a red light? I’m guessing that Fitzpatrick has never owned a driver’s license. Ever.

A rollercoaster called The Archangel. Do people at a park really give a crap about biblical lore? Furthermore, the car Nora & Patch ride in has a “grouping of four paintings” depicting an angels’ fall from grace. Don’t all rollercoasters have large flashy graphics that can be seen from a distance & look cool when speeding around the track? Since when do they sport fairly intricate and thoughtful artwork?

A local paper reported that Elliot Saunders, a 16yr old kid, was the last person to be seen with a girl before her body was found, and therefore was held & questioned for her murder. So, in addition to being a non-driving, homeschooled, amusement park avoider… Fitzpatrick is clearly unaware of laws protecting minors in this country.

The article continues to state that Elliot was released after a suicide note was found in the victim’s apartment. There are no further news stories regarding this matter. Nevertheless, Nora persists in believing that there is a “murder investigation surrounding Elliot.” And this girl has hopes of getting into an Ivy league school????

Nora has the police at her house for a 911 call, and again to question her about an attack on a fellow student. Nora’s mother is never informed of the police visits, despite the fact that Nora is a minor. I shouldn’t be surprised, because it has already been established that Fitzpatrick has no understanding of laws pertaining to minors.

Nora sees Patch’s bare back and notices that, ”Two thick gashes ran the length of it. They started near his kidneys, and ended at his shoulder blades, widening to form an upside down V.” Is it just me?!?! If an upside down V extends from the kidneys to the shoulder blades, it will NARROW not widen!!!!! Right? Fitzpatrick could have written that the gashes started at his shoulder blades, and extended to his kidneys as they widened to form an upside down V. But the way it’s written? It doesn’t make sense! Furthermore, the kidneys are pretty much right below the shoulder blades, not further out from them. Yeah, I’m nitpicking.

The final irrational aspect of hush, hush is Nora herself .She is naïve, spineless, and a horrible and chronic liar. When she doesn’t want to do something, she will make up lame excuse after lame excuse… even when she gets called out for her excuses, she never has the balls to simply say, “I am not interested in having dinner/date/whatever with you.” She just continues to make up excuses ~ never comes clean or sticks up for herself. When Patch is attempting to corner & kiss her, Nora tells him to go. When he doesn’t, she says, “My legs are falling asleep” What? Who says that?! Lord, if you want him to go and he doesn’t then TELL HIM AGAIN! BUT DON’T MAKE UP SOME LAME ASS EXCUSE! No wonder people walk all over Nora and take advantage of her! Nora is so frightened of Patch, that there is even a scene where he is playing cat and mouse with her ~ chasing her around a parked car, until she breaks out in a run, only to be caught by him in a matter of seconds. But despite her fear, she never tells him NO.

I don’t take issue with Patch. Really. He is thousands of years old (presumably), isn’t human, and for some reason has developed a crush on a very immature teen. So I actually expect him to mess with her a little bit. But dumbass Nora actually allows him to manipulate her. Not that she deserves it (although, really she does!) but Nora does nothing to defend herself against Patch, Elliot, Vee… anyone! She loses control of every conversation and interaction she participates in. And still manages to come out the “heroine.” Whatever! Had Nora grown or changed as a result of her experiences, I could have forgiven her. Or if Nora had suffered some severe consequences as a result of her stupidity, I could have forgiven Fitzpatrick. As it is…I’m considering destroying this library book and facing the repurcussions of a library black mark (or god forbid ban!) all in the name of saving young, impressionable teen girls from thinking Nora is the sort of protagonist to look up to. Even Bella Swan is more admirable. And that’s saying something!

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

*UHHUM* WHY IS IT THAT ALL I SEE ARE NEGATIVE REVIEWS OF THIS BOOK? REALLY? REALLY? ARE WE EVEN READING THE SAME HUSH HUSH?


I fell in love with Patch INSTANTLY I mean what's not to love?
I also love Nora- She is such a refreshing and intriguing heroine. Her and Patch suit each other perfectly. They bounce off each other and really made me laugh with their witty and sarcy sense of humour! They bicker like hell and it's so much fun to read.
I loved the twist in the end, it turned everything I thought was going to happen into something entirely different. I never knew what was going to happen next.
I thoroughly enjoyed and loved this book and I certainly cannot wait to read the next.! Well deserved 5 stars, well fricking deserved!

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

About three things I was absolutely positive:

First, that Hush, Hush was, without a doubt, one of the worst Twilight rip-offs I've ever had the misfortune to read.

Second, there was a part of me -- and I didn't realize how dominant that part actually was -- that insisted on reading Hush, Hush to the bitter end in the hope it would redeem itself.

And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably wrong in that decision.

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let's see. My review/What I learned from this book:

Well, I learned that it was a lot of fun to write! Enjoy the fall, all!

[NickReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

____________________________________________

“Keep in mind that people change, but the past doesn't.”

____________________________________________



☆☆☆☆4 HUSHY STARS!☆☆☆☆

You can find the full review and more about this book on my blog!

Okay so before reading this, I heard a lot of mixed feelings about this series. Some loved it, some liked it and some hated it. Now before I start my review I want to say that even that I heard a lot of things I was not spoiled or didn't even know anything about the plot or story so it was a fresh new start for me.

____________________________________________

“You smell good, too,” said Patch

It’s called a shower.” I was staring straight ahead. When he didn’t answer, I turned sideways. “Soap. Shampoo. Hot water.”

Naked. I know the drill.”

____________________________________________

I have read this book in 2 days. I can't say I didn't like it. Yeah I know it has some mistakes or nonsense things but it was good. It was similar to Twilight, and if you know me you would know that I truly hate that series, but it was a good similar, a better one. For me at least. Also the book cover is one of the best covers ever. It's so creative and the colors are perfectly collided.

____________________________________________

“Say 'provoking' again. Your mouth looks provocative when you do.”

____________________________________________

This book reminded me old horror movies, and I am a huge fan of old scary movies. I can't say that it was unique. The story was quite predicted, like I could tell what will happen but for me it was a fun read and I seriously think that this book would have been better if it didn't have angels at all.

____________________________________________

“You're a guardian angel now." I was still too much in awe to wrap my mind around it, but at the same time I felt amazement, curiosity...happiness.

"I'm your guardian angel," he said.

"I get my very own guardian angel? What, exactly, is your job description?"

"Guard your body." His smile tipped higher. "I take my job seriously, which means I'm going to need to get acquainted with the subject matter on a personal level.”

____________________________________________

I can't say the plot was rich. It was random, but good random and I did like the background of scenes, like BO Arcade is such a cool place and I had a pretty awesome picture of it in my mind. Also the school scene at the end was hilarious, like the gym and classes. And the farmhouse was quite creepy, it reminded me the ring movie and I don't know why, maybe the fog, but it was cool and well thought.

____________________________________________

“All this time I've hated myself for it. I thought I'd given it up for nothing. But if I hadn't fallen, I wouldn't have met you.”

____________________________________________

The beginning was good, also the middle but the ending was great. My favorite scene was the light out school scene. It reminded me a scene from 'Teen Wolf' the TV series. It was greatly described and that was the only moment I didn't know what was going to happen, even though it ended fast.

____________________________________________

“Cheshvan starts tonight," Rixon said, "What are you doing arsing around in a graveyard?"

"Thinking."

"Thinking?"

"A process by which I use my brain to make a rational decision.”

____________________________________________

The writing style is not bad but it is not great either. I was simple like a lot of novels out there. The characters are also good but not the ones you remember for long. And I found some of them really annoying.

The story follows a girl called Nora who lives a normal life with her mom and her bestfriend Vee. One day the Couch decides to change their seats for a project and she gets to sit with Patch, a boy who rarely talked. At the first words they exchanged she felt something new inside her. She couldn't stand him because of his arrogance but also couldn't deny the feelings. Also things started to happen, new things, new people, new troubles in her life. She felt the need to learn more, more about Patch, but was she ready to know?

____________________________________________

“Before I forget, here's your homework. Where do you want me to put it?"
She pointed at the trash can. "Right there would be fine.”

____________________________________________

The characters:

Nora

Am I the only one who thinks Nora is not that smart? I actually think she is kind of un-wise, I mean who goes in the middle of the night to ask a boy she rarely know some personal questions for a school project. Also the scene with the old lady, I cant think worst ways she could have acted in that situation.'

Patch

I don't know what to say about Patch, he is just like every other main male character out there.

Vee

I found Vee really annoying. She was also stupid, maybe stupider. And maybe that's why they are friends:)

____________________________________________

“The problem with human attraction is not knowing if it will be returned.”

____________________________________________

I recommend this book if you are into creepy paranormal romance. It doesn't have role model or give a positive message but it is a fun read, especially for this time of year. I enjoyed it:)

*Pictures from the review are not mine, I took them mostly from Google images or Tumblr*

[Tatiana · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is simply appalling.

I won't lie, my expectations going in about this book were pretty low. But even so, "Hush, Hush" managed to disappoint me.

First, there are many similarities with "Twilight" - you have a regular average girl here, absent parents, a love affair with a dangerous supernatural boyfriend, a final showdown with a villain of his own kind. The mythology, while somewhat unusual (I haven't read anything about fallen angels in YA so far), is paper thin. The characters are shallow and undeveloped (BTW, Vee is the dumbest character I've read about maybe ever).

But this is not even what makes this book a barely tolerable read. This book is just plain silly, and silly not in a cute-and-funny way, but more in it's-pretty-dumb-and-dangerous-to-fall-for-this-crap way. Many things are just so contrived about the story, I got a headache rolling my eyes while reading it. For instance: a bomb threat to steal an empty personal file that nobody investigates later? a biology class which is centered on discussing one uncomfortable and almost harassed student's sexual attractiveness? why would a mother whose husband was murdered leave her 16-year old daughter alone in a remote house for weeks at a time? why would parents of another teenage girl let her go out NEXT DAY after she had surgery following a violent attack on her? dressing up like a hooker to get some dirt on a guy you are investigating? why would an angel fall for loving a human and then get his wings back while loving another human?

And finally, why exactly Patch and Nora are in love? They know nothing about each other. Even more, Nora spends most of the book calling Patch creepy, being scared of him, being roughly pinned by him to various walls in dark places or being at his knife's point, and yet she is full of desire for him? It just makes no sense. As for Patch, I don't know one thing about him or why he loves Nora. My list can go on and on...

But surely enough, teenage girls will eat this story up. You have everything for success here: a fabulous cover and font, and pages and pages of flirtatious banter filled with sexual innuendos (very often bordering on sexual harassment) fit for 30-year olds and not 10-graders.

I am rarely for any kind of censorship of books, but reading nonsense like "Hush, Hush" makes me wonder: what are these writers thinking? In my opinion, YA writers should be held to a higher standard than your usual writers of adults fiction. Why would they want to promote such outright disturbing relationships as normal to impressionable and silly teenage girls? In my book, the relationship between Patch and Nora is not simply shallow, but dangerous. I wish some of the authors exercised better judgment writing their books, otherwise they are setting up many-many girls for a lot of disappointment, because whatever is presented in this book as romantic is disturbing at best in real life.

Well, to sum this tirade up, "Hush, Hush" is pretty much a book that gives YA literature a bad name. Naturally, the sequel is in works, but surely enough, I won't be reading it. I'd rather dedicate my time to something better written and less contrived and misguided.

Reading challenge: #1 - F

[SK · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars✨

You know how a book is trashy but somehow it's able to keep you entertained and invested enough to continue with it? This was that book. To be frank, it reads like a bad fanfic inspired by Twilight and I admit I would have liked it in my teens but for now it just made me laugh at how ridiculous it was.

The story is meh, it only gets better at the end. There was a lot of potential, especially when it came to fallen angels and Nephilim but the writing doesn't support the story at all, it doesn't have a clear structure or direction and the cringe arse dialogues and personalities don't help either.

I don't believe I liked any of the characters, especially not the two main characters- Nora and Patch. Nora is thick in the head. She is also a self centered person. One thing that I really HATED was the way she retaliated to a fat shaming comment but making fun and putting the other down by using eating disorders. I get that teenagers can be quite emotionally charged in moments but I wouldn't have said that as a teen, neither anyone I know. It was a sickening comment from Nora. Patch is arrogant, cocky, and unlikable. He could have been an interesting character but he's just an arrogant arsehole. For someone who has existed for a LONGGGGGGGGG time, one would think that he is a bit mature and carries himself well but apparently not. It is only when the ending happens and I start to like him a bit.

Also, let's never disrespect Edward and Bella by comparing them to Sour Patch and Nora Brat.

The ending saved the book for me as it had decent reveals and plot twists. I am intrigued enough to read the second book but I won't go in with high hopes.


~•~•~
Have been seeing this a lot on my feed lately. I have hope as someone who loves Twilight, I might like this. Also ngl that cover is BADASS

[Lissa]

Read this. Don't argue: just do it:
"If you don’t like me, I’ll force myself on you until you do. We see this all the time and it’s even romanticized. Everything from romance novels to sitcoms we see women who aren’t interested in a man and we see those men determined to catch her. To pursue her, to convince her that she’ll like me eventually. If I try hard enough, if I harass her long enough... she’s sure to cave in eventually. She can’t say no. And if she does I’ll just assume it’s code for “try harder."

Before you read the rest of this review you should really go and read this post and this post on rape culture. Please read them, especially if you don’t like the word feminist, especially if you think Patch is ‘hot’ or ‘romantic’, and especially if you’re thinking about trolling this review. Learn what’s really acceptable before you bash someone for saying Patch isn’t. It seemed so often that the only reason Nora was saying no to Patch was so that she could later relent, thereby confirming the fact that when women say no they really mean yes, especially to hot guys they’re attracted to and frightened of at the same time.



Oh, Ms Fitzpatrick, you’re a crafty one. But 30 pages of non-shittiness at the end of a 400 page book can’t redeem all the shittiness from the earlier pages.

So, here’s what happens in this book.
Nora: Some creepy transfer student is sexually harassing me.
Patch: LOL, you know you want me.
Nora: Fuck off, creep.
Elliot: Hi Nora, I’m the complete opposite of Patch, and I’m your only alternative.
Nora: I better go out with you so I don’t think about Patch.
Patch: Come leave your perfectly normal date and ride on a rollercoaster with me even though you hate me.
Nora: Okay.
New school counsellor: Stay away from Patch
Nora: Okay. But he’s following me anyway so I better confront him.
Patch: You’re so sexy I want to bone you. /threatens rape/
Nora: Even though you just threatened to rape me, I’m going to accept a ride home with you because I’m pathetic and I can’t call my mum or a cab or catch a bus.
Patch: Wielding a knife makes me sexy and I’m going to almost kiss you.
Nora: Fuck off. You terrify me.
Patch: Loosen up, babe. You love it. By the way, I was planning on killing you. /sexual assault/
Nora: You’re right, I do love it /facenoms/

I have to credit Fitzpatrick for her red herrings. I wasn’t sure who to trust or who the antagonist really was until it was revealed. So kudos to her for that. And the other thing I have to say is that Fitzpatrick actually seems to have a grasp of the English language. It’s not her writing technique that I hate, it’s the characters and their attitudes and the messages hidden in this book that disgust me. Fitzpatrick’s clearly written her own teenage fantasy here: to be sexually assaulted by a hot guy who’s so hot the sexual assault is forgiven because the girl really wants it but just pretends she doesn’t to preserve her feminine modesty. Although – I must remind everyone – this book would have had at least five different editors to help her get the basics of grammar and punctuation correct. Also – she’s not afraid of writing fight scenes, unlike several other YA PNR authors who build up and build up and threaten with a war and then fizzle out with nothing.

I was beyond prepared for this book. I still believe that it should not have been published because it glorifies rape culture, the women are complete bitches and the blokes are complete twats. I read this book with my trusty Post It notes beside me and marked the page every time I found something, offensive, stupid, or downright shitty:


Um… if I write something about all of these tags, this review will probably take forever… SIGH. Okay, I’ll do it.

Coach continued, “Since the dawn of time, women have been attracted to mates with strong survival skills—like intelligence and physical prowess—because men with these qualities are more likely to bring home dinner at the end of the day.”

What about lesbians? Seriously. Do lesbians even exist in this world? This is so fucking sexist it makes me want to vomit. This is around the time Nora’s being openly sexually harassed in the classroom, which pisses me off. I won’t go into how stupid it is that a sports coach is teaching biology, because there are plenty of other reviews that delve into that (yes, some sports teachers do have degrees in biology blah blah blah but it’s not very common and this Coach doesn’t know anything about reproduction: he thinks it means the students have to find a mate RIGHT NOW). This entire class revolves around how women want strong men to protect them and bring home the bacon and men want attractive women because ugly women don’t get laid. Which is pretty funny, because the two biggest slags in my city are both ugly as fuck yet between them have slept with nearly every male I know. I also have to mention that if Patch wasn’t a hottie patottie, there is no way anyone would support all that sexual harassment to Nora. Coach laughs it off because Nora’s being a hysterical woman: a man showing unwanted sexual attraction is a compliment, and nothing to get all worked up about – besides, the point of the class was to teach those strapping young lads when a girl is aroused. Stop having a woman’s period and suck up the fact that a guy wants to bone you. In fact, maybe you should spend more time with him and his unwelcome sexual advances. In fact, Nora should tutor Patch! (Which, actually, is only mentioned once more in the entire novel.) I was pretty offended by this whole thing.

As little as I knew about [Patch], I sensed his aversion to Vee as if it were concrete enough to touch.”

Patch has never met Vee. How can Nora know how he would feel about her best friend? Fitzpatrick is very desperately trying to show us here that Nora is the only thing Patch is interested in, even more than her ‘sexy’ non-virginal best friend.

I took a moment to think over his offer. I was pretty sure that if I turned Elliot down, Vee would kill me. Besides, going out with Elliot seemed like a good way to escape my uncomfortable attraction to Patch.

So you want to go out with Elliot not because you like him or he’s nice or you want to get to know him better, but because your best friend will kill you if you say no and you think it’ll help you get over Patch? What a bitch!

“Every woman needs to reinvent her sexy side—I like that. My daughter got implants. She said she did it for herself, but what woman gets boobs for herself? They are a burden. She got the boobs for a man.”

Please excuse me while I let my inner feminist rant and rage about how sexist and demeaning that is.

“Boys like girls who look like … girls.”

Fuck you, Vee, and your anti-feminist agenda! Girls do not need to dress up to impress boys! Some boys like other boys! Some boys like girls with a bit of meat on them! Some boys like petite dark girls while others like Scandinavian Amazons! What right have YOU to say what girls should look like? My whole young adult life I was taught that the right boys will like you for you, not what you look like! What were you taught? That spreading your legs is the only way to get a guy’s attention?

I dug in my heels. “You want to help? Stay away from me.”
He brushed a curl off my face. “Love the hair. Love when it’s out of control. It’s like seeing a side of you that needs to come out more often.”

Every time Nora tells him to fuck off, he comes back with a compliment on her physical appearance that’s loaded with innuendo. This reinforces the rape culture of the book. Nora’s saying no, but she’s being reasonably polite and Patch is ignoring her rejections.

“You sound worked up. Really worked up. No, that’s not it. You sound agitated … flustered … aroused.” I could feel her eyes widen. “He kissed you, didn’t he?”

What the fuck, Vee? First of all, it’s none of your business. Second of all, kisses do not always lead to arousal. Third, it’s none of your fucking business. Fourth, how the fuck do you tell if someone is aroused over the phone? Fifth, it is none of your fucking business. And sixth: how do you know when your best friend is aroused when she’s never been around anyone she’s found attractive before? Did you two watch porn together one time? Do you discuss what makes you horny and how your voices sound when that happens? Or are you secretly in love with Nora?

Every other time I’d felt that way, it was because Patch was near.
The voice of reason quickly extinguished Patch’s involvement.

If every other time you’d felt that way, Patch was involved, how can you logically rule out his involvement? How does this literally work? How does your brain work, Nora? “When I’d punched myself in the face it hurt. But the voice of reason told me my face didn’t hurt because I’d punched it.” MALARKY! Cause and effect. Causation and correlation. Fucking dumbass. How the hell are you fit for an Ivy-league school?

“You’re an attractive girl. I imagine there must be some interest from the opposite sex.”

This counts as sexual harassment from yet another adult. How is this appropriate? Yes, I do know who Miss Greene turns out to be but still, if my councillor asked me this question I’d put in a formal fucking complaint.

Not one part of me felt comfortable with the idea of Vee spending time alone with Jules… [because he] was close friends with Elliot.

Oh Nora, you are so fucking lucky people don’t judge you because of who you hang around with you shallow fucking bitch.

In fact, I was pretty sure Australia had no diamonds. Period.

BAHAHAHAHAHA!
And you think you deserve an Ivy-league scholarship?

Deep inside, I didn’t believe Patch was the guy behind the ski mask. Maybe he had dark, disturbing secrets, but running around in a ski mask wasn’t one of them.

How the fuck do you know? You don’t know him at all! Or maybe it’s just because he’s so hot that he couldn’t possibly attack you – except the he does! Over and over and over again! Nora, you really are fucking stupid.

“We need to ask you both a few questions,” he continued. He pointed for me to take a seat on my bed, but I shook my head numbly. “Have you recently broken up with a boyfriend?”

Fuck! Why are all the adults so interested in Nora’s romantic/sex life? This is not normal. She’s sixteen. Adults prefer to pretend sixteen year olds don’t have sex at all.

“I’m sorry, but Elliot? A murderer? He’s, like, the nicest guy I’ve ever met.”

And you, Vee Sky, are the most selfish, ignorant, stupid bitchiest dumbass characters I’ve ever read in the history of YA.

I was feeling a lot more relaxed. Patch was warm and solid, and he smelled fantastic. Like mint and rich, dark earth. Nobody had jumped out at us on the ride home... For the first time all day I felt safe.
Except that Patch had cornered me in a dark tunnel and was possibly stalking me. Maybe not so safe.

This is an actual quote. It’s like Nora’ schizophrenic or something. “Patch is SO hot, except he might be stalking me and I’m not safe and he’s SO dangerous, but that just makes him even hotter!” I have never in my whole life ever known a girl to find a guy she’s afraid of attractive.

“When I was in high school, I only offered rides to girls I was interested in. Let’s carry that a step further. What’s your relationship with your bio partner … outside the classroom?”

Yet another example of all the adults’ inappropriate interest in Nora’s sexuality, sexual history, romantic life and sex life.

I could not accept that Patch would hurt Marcie. Marcie wasn’t the nicest person, and she’d acquired more than a handful of enemies. A few of those enemies might be capable of brutality, but Patch wasn’t one of them. Senseless beating wasn’t his style.

WHAT?! It’s EXACTLY his style. He’s a creepy stalker who sexually harasses and assaults you (and you LIKE it, you crazy bitch) and then you get all up on your high horse because you think he’s too good to beat someone up? YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HIM.

“Sorry, I already have plans.”
“Let me change your mind.”

Yet another one of the very numerous examples where a male assumes Nora’s very definite ‘no’ means ‘take me, I’m yours’.

“He dragged me out the front door and shoved me against the house.”
“But he was drunk, right?”

Ladies and gentlefolk: Vee Sky! Official worst best friend ever. Defending a guy she doesn’t even know against assaulting her best friend because he’s drunk. Oh, well that’s okay then! Maybe if Elliot happened to be driving drunk and killed a toddler and its mother because he ran onto the pavement Vee would forgive him as well, because he has issues and was drunk!

He leaned close and spoke in confidential tones. “We get a lot of folks who don’t want their extracurricular activities traced, if you know what I mean.”

Yet ANOTHER example of an inappropriate comment made by an adult to a minor! What planet is Fitzpatrick from?

My head spun faster, and I could feel my pulse beating in my temples. I’d felt this heart pounding panic before. I needed my iron pills.

All this malarky with the iron pills. Nora has anaemia. She has to take iron pills or she’s in danger of, like, fainting… or something. Prescription iron pills. This is complete bullshit. I have anaemia. I buy my iron tablets off the shelf. If I forget to take them, I get a bit lethargic, tired, lose energy and concentration, and as a personal side effect my lips get very dry, broken and unkissable (which is why I always use lip balm). There is only danger of fainting from low iron if it’s chronically low, and Nora doesn’t show any other symptoms like shortness of breath, lethargy, chest pain, palpitations, fatigue, or cold skin. It’s not even essential that I take my iron tablets, and I certainly don’t feel the lowness of iron in my blood the way experienced diabetics can feel low blood sugar. Anaemia is not going to kill me if I forget to take a couple of tablets: it’s simply inconvenient. Fitzpatrick has given Nora an inconvenient ‘illness’ in the hopes that it makes her weak in her time of greatest need. And it fails. (And now, just because I’m being especially picky: iron tablets are best taken with vitamin C which helps to absorb it, not ‘whenever I feel like the iron count in my blood is low’. Which, by the way, we totally can’t tell.)

In the kitchen I saw my bottle of iron pills on the counter, and I immediately went for them, popping the cap and swallowing two with a glass of chocolate milk. I stood in place a moment, letting the iron work into my system, feeling my breathing deepen and slow.

What the fuck? Just what the actual fuck? You can’t feel the iron working its way into your blood. Just NO. That’s NOT how it works. You don’t feel any different at all. This is complete bullshit.

Jules was dead. Elliot was almost dead. Who had killed them? Who was left? I tried to make sense of what was happening, but all reason had left me.

Nora, you never had any reason. Let’s think about this. Jules is dead. Elliot is almost dead. Only Patch and Vee are still wandering the school. Logically it’s gotta be one of them. Unless it was secretly you. Why can’t you just admit that you think Patch is capable of this violence? Look, I know Jules is screwing with you, but really. You can’t even consider for one moment that maybe Patch, the psycho stalking sexual harasser and assaulter is responsible for such violence? Cos the moment you outright accuse him and then find out he’s not would be AWESOME.

All the knots in my body seemed to come undone. My eyes moved out of focus. Jules’s face was like an Impressionist painting—blurred around the edges, lacking detail. Blood drained from my head, and I felt myself start to slip off the chair. I’d felt this way enough times before to know I needed iron. Soon.

That has never happened to me, and I have gone weeks without taking any iron supplements. You know what? This book makes me want to punch myself in the face. Nora should be diabetic, not anaemic. One of my best mates is diabetic and when she was learning to read her own body she’d do stuff like that on the way to a coma from low blood sugar. (We made her drink this special glucose syrupy thing and she was fine, BTW. We’re not horrible friends who just let our best mate go into a coma before our eyes.) Iron does not magically fix the body when you think you’re going to faint.

“I’m still in there, a prisoner inside my own body, living every moment of it,” he said in a grinding tone. “Do you know what that feels like? Do you?” he shouted.

What the heck is up with this dialogue tag? Tacked on to the end like a bad apology. Although Fitzpatrick had generally a fine technique, I’m inclined to believe that came about solely because of the multitude of edits this book would have gone through. And they missed this clumsy piece of writing. I absolutely hate it when authors write, “Blah blah blah,” he said. “Blah blah?” he shouted. It just doesn’t work. For the love of god, I’d prefer a bloody interrobang to an extra dialogue tag. This may be one of the only times I have an issue with Fitzpatrick’s technique, but it still bothers me.

I don’t really want to try Crescendo but I’m going to… the only problem I have before reading is that the books go from Hush, Hush to Crescendo to Silence. Now, first of all I have no idea why this book is called Hush, Hush. Unless it’s telling women who complain about unwanted sexual attention to shut up. But to get from hushing to silence you need a diminuendo, not a crescendo. I suppose once I read it I’ll be able to comment on how appropriate the title is.

You know what’s kept 'hush hush'? Sexual assault.

I just had an epiphany. Maybe Ms Fitzpatrick is really trolling us all because she knows she’s written a book about sexual harassment and ironically named it Hush, Hush.

No, wait. That would be giving her more credit than she deserves.

[~Calliope~ · Rating 5 out of 5]

“If you can't feel, why did you kiss me?"
Patch traced a finger along my collarbone, then headed south stopping at my heart. I felt it pounding through my skin. "Because I feel it here, in my heart."


“All this time I've hated myself for it. I thought I'd given it up for nothing. But if I hadn't fallen, I wouldn't have met you.”


“Hang on, did you just call me Angel ?” I asked.
“If I did?”
“I don’t like it.”
He grinned. “It stays. Angel.”



I really liked it!!! I loved Nora and Patch, especially Patch but I have an objection.Why Patch?I don't like that name at all.Wtf? Fallen angel named Patch?

Anyway :P


I was so confused at the beginning who was watching Nora and why they wanted to kill her. All the clues showed Patch. It wasn't him even though he wanted to kill her at first so that he can become human. But he couldn't do it because he fell in love with her.


“Keep in mind that people change, but the past doesn't.”


It was revealed that Jules/Chauncey wanted to kill her because he wanted to hurt Patch.I hate Jules!!


I cried when Nora tried to sacrifice herself for Patch but thank God he refused her sacrifice.
In the end, Patch becomes her guardian angel!!!


“I’m your guardian angel,” he said.
“I get my very own guardian angel? What, exactly, is your job description?”
“Guard your body.” His smile tipped higher. “I take my job seriously, which means I’m going to need to get acquainted with the subject matter on a personal level.”

[jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

what do you get when you cross a wannabe twilight-esque story with a main character radiating noah shaw vibes? a shockingly entertained jessica, thats what. swap out the vampires for fallen angels and add a brooding, kinda creepy and definitely weird love interest and thats basically ‘hush, hush’ in a nutshell. trust me, no one is more surprised than me at how much i didnt hate this.

in general, this was a super quick read. the writing is very straightforward, the chapters are short, and the plot pacing is pretty fast. i also thought the content was more interesting than i expected. i dont know anything about fallen angels and i dont really delve into the paranormal scene, but there was just enough air of mystery to keep me captivated. i think this book served as a really good intro into the concept and laid a lot of groundwork for the rest of the series (at least, i hope it does - i have a lot of questions that need to be answered!).

this would have definitely been a 5 star rating had i read this back in high school. it definitely gave me a nostalgic feel to the way the story was presented and was very reminiscent of the books i read as a teen. this is perfect for those young at heart who are looking for a unique and fast-paced read!

↠ 3.5 stars

[Dana (Dana and the Books) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Abusive, creepy, controlling men that everyone finds irresistible? No thank you.



I don't care if he's an angel - he could work in a fucking soup kitchen 50 hours a week and he'd still be an asshole - Patch was a disgusting 'love interest'. If you could even call him a love interest. He takes advantage of her body and her mind, but it's okay, he's dreeeeamy.



I'm so tired of unhealthy relationships being portrayed as normal and okay - especially in YA.



And then, let's not forget that this was essentially Twilight with angels instead of vampires. It's been almost 10 years since I read Twilight, but even after all this time the similarities were eeriily uncanny.



But also:

[Charlotte Kersten]

So I COULD spend this review discussing Hush, Hush's shameless championship of stalking, abuse, sexual harassment and assault in the name of peddling some tawdry "teen" "romance" but you know what? I think that territory's been thoroughly covered. What I'd rather do is lay out my very favorite moments from this book.

1. Nora's driving skills. "The stoplight ahead turned yellow. I rolled to a stop, checked to see that the traffic was clear, then pulled into the intersection."

2. The mystery of the vanilla bean. Vee describes it as "a fruit. A brown fruit." Nora says that it's a legume. Fascinating.

3. Patch's tacos. Patch describes a taco as "tomatoes, lettuce and cheese." Are the tacos in heaven really meager?

4. Nora's date night fashions. "I wrapped a Hally-blue scarf around my waist, up my torso then tied the ends behind my neck to fashion a halter-style blouse." I still have no idea what this is supposed to look like. Someone please draw it for me.

5. The bomb threat. You know, the fake one that Vee calls in so that they can break into the school records office to stalk Patch? The one that is never mentioned again and apparently requires no follow-up whatsoever? You know, just like bomb threats in real life?

6. Nora's totally valid rationalizations for her actions. She says that she the right to break into the school records office to stalk Patch because "as [his] biology partner, I had a right to know these things."

7. The sports. "I got a piece of [the baseball], sending it flying into the dirt on the wrong side of the foul line. 'That's a strike!' Miss Sully called from her position between first and second bases."
IS IT THO? ARE YOU SURE?

8. Patch's blog. "I Googled Patch Cipriano. Maybe I'd find an article that would shed light on his past. Or maybe he kept a blog." PLEASE you do not even understand what I would do to read blog posts written by Patch. You just don't!

9. Patch's eyes. Because they "looked like they didn't play by the rules." The...rules that eyes have?

10. You know what? God bless you, Nora. You poor sweet thing. After she has spent the entirety of the book being gaslit, stalked, burglarized (twice, with the house being lit on fire on the second occasion just a bit before this scene) threatened with death and had assassination attempts carried out against her person, this is the best she can come up with when she discovers two flat tires in the parking lot: "I dropped my gaze and sure enough, both tires on the driver's side were flat. 'I can't believe it!" I said. "I drove over two nails?'"

[Kogiopsis · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have forty eight sticky notes.
Well, forty nine, I suppose, since I use the little white backing thing too. They're quite nice sticky notes, designed not to be written on but as bookmarks; at some year in the past they magically appeared in my Christmas stocking, and I haven't really used them since. I suspect there were originally fifty, so I've used two elsewhere.
Anyhow. Forty nine sticky notes was what I started with when I commenced reading Hush, Hush a little after 9 AM on August 25.
Less than fifteen hours and over a hundred pages later, I ran out of sticky notes. I used the notes to mark particularly horrendous parts of the book- and frankly, I'm surprised they lasted this long.
In the interest of not broaching another set of sticky notes which I may want from school, I'm going to deal with this book segment by segment; when I finish one round of sticky notes, I review and then continue. 'Course, since I won't post this until it's finished you'll just get the complete version. No perspective analysis, unless I really feel like it. All I'm going to do is quote Fitzpatrick, comment on the quote briefly, and move on.

EDIT: Before I even got through Section 1, I was over Goodreads' character limit by 978 characters. I still have more than 9 pages (counting one side of a sheet of lined paper as a page) of handwritten notes to type up- and those aren't even including responses, they're just quotes. So I'm going to cut this review down to the maximum accepted size (and do some formatting too) and post the rest in comments. Lengthy ranting? Heck yes.

Section 1: 0-113

Chauncey was with a farmer's daughter on the grassy banks of the Loire River when the storm rolled in, and having let his gelding wander in the meadow, was left to his own two feet to carry him back to the chateau.

- Book begins, very first sentence, with sex. BAD SIGN.
-Is this going to be relevant? Do the doings of one randy duke in Sixteenth Century France really concern the later plot?


Kneeling there, blinking up through the rain, he saw two thick scars on the back of the boy's naked torso. They narrowed to form an upside-down V.

- Is it the scar tissue that narrows? Because that's how it seems.
- I'm no expert on anatomy, but the V thing seems odd. Wouldn't having flight muscles attached to your latissimus dorsi (I believe that's the name, but the ones that wrap from the front of your ribcage to the back) be awfully strenous? Wouldn't you build up those muscles to unrealistic and bizarre-looking proportions?


'Welcome to Human Reproduction (Sex)'
At my side Vee Sky said, "This is exactly why the school outlaws camera phones. Pictures of this in the e-Zine would be all the evidence I'd need to get the board of education to ax biology."

- Is it really necessary to introduce Vee with first and last name, especially as this is written from Nora's perspective?
- Odds of a BoE getting rid of biology in any school curriculum are next to nil. Odds of BoE firing idiot teacher or changing the curriculum are pretty good, though.


Coach considered teaching tenth-grade biology a side assignment to his job as varsity basketball coach, and we all knew it.

- The frick? No. Biology is an ENORMOUS subject. Anyone who teaches it and can get a job teaching it has to, by definition almost, be devoted primarily to it.
- For future reference, Vee and Nora are sophomores, which means they'll be between fourteen and sixteen, probably sixteen.


"Science is an investigation," Coach said, sanding his hands together. "Science requires us to transform into spies."

- I will not digress into my own academic scientific background, but this is wrong. Science is an investigation, yes. Science requires observing things in a way which may be spy-like, yes. But it's not espionage. Deviate how you will from the scientific method, but most science is going to require experiments at one point, not just observation and certainly not just 'sleuthing'.


Vee is my un-twin. She's green-eyed, minky blond, and a few pounds over curvy. I'm a smoky-eyed brunette with volumes of curly hair that holds its own against even the best flatirn. And I'm all legs, like a bar stool.

- Descriptioninfodump not appreciated. Bits and pieces, Ms. Fitzpatz, bits and pieces. Your readers are smart enough to 'patch' together a description from fragments scattered here and there where relevant. This spoon-feeding paragraph is distracting from the 'action' of the story and just slightly insulting to my intelligence.


My heart fumbled a beat and in that pause, a feeling of gloomy darkness seemed to slide like a shadow over me. It vanished in an instant, but I was still staring at him. His smile wasn't friendly. It was a smile that spelled trouble. With a promise.

- Does darkness slide over something like anything but a shadow? Superflous description.
- If this is her first impression of Patch, it bodes ill...


Coach said, "Human reproduction can be a sticky subject."
"Ewww!" groaned a chorus of students.
"It requires mature handling. And like all science, the best approach is to learn by sleuthing. For the rest of the class, practice this technique by finding out as much as you can about your new partner."

- Yes, it does require mature handling- which neither Fitzpatz or her character displays. Immature puns? Not amused.
- SLDKJFLAJ: EXPERIMENTS GODDAMMIT. Not ****ing SLEUTHING, EXPERIMENTS.
- 'Technique'? What technique? Word implies that he's taught them some kind of technique to use in 'sleuthing', but he clearly has not.
- What's with Fitzpatz's love of this word 'sleuthing' anyhow? Did she just learn what it means or something? Is she trying to show off?


I sat perfectly still. The ball was in his court- I'd smiled, and look how well that turned out.

- We find out later that Nora wants to get into an Ivy-League school, or at least that she's capable of it. So why is someone who must have been going after her grades nigh-on aggressively her entire highschool career content to sit back passively and let someone else control the fate of an assignment? She has no drive and no persistence, obviously.


Great. At this rate I would fail.

- SO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT YOU TWIT.


"Call me Patch. I mean it. Call me."

- Horrible pick-up line. Does Fitzpatz really think teenagers speak like this?
- Useless pick-up line. 'Call me' doesn't work unless you give the subject a relevant phone number.


"I wasn't finished," he said. "I've got quite a collection going of an eZine columnist who believes there's truth in eating organic, who writes poetry in secret, and who shudders at the thought of having to choose between Stanford, Yale, and... what's that big one with the H?"

- GINORMOUS RED FLAGS. He's stalking you and taking pictures, Nora, you airhead. He's at the very least a voyeur, at the most a sexual predator. REPORT THIS SHIT. That's what the police are there for.
- This is Fitzpatz trying to characterize Nora through someone else's exposition- we are told she is all of these things, but never shown any of them.


The hair at the nape of my neck stood on end, and the temperature in the room seemed to chill. Ordinarily I would have gone straight to Coach's desk and requested a new seating chart.

- I cannot believe it. She just basically ACKNOWLEDGED changing her viewpoint character's personality becausse of (what will become) TWOO WUVE FOEVAH AN EVAH. Under ordinary circumstances she would have requested a change, but because it's PATCH THE SUPER SPESHUL MAN she doesn't. Bullshit.


He was a dark-Levi's-dark-henley-dark-boots kind of guy.

- Boots? Jeans? Henley? Agh. I pictured this and it looked horrible. Ominous maybe, fashionable definitely not.


"Go for it. I could use a hook for my next eZine article. 'Tenth Grader Fights Back.' Better yet, 'Seating Chart Takes Slap in the Face.' Mmm. I like it."

- And from this we learn that Vee can't write for jack. Seriously lame, both of these; pompous and not in the least bit clever.


"How was school?" Dorothea asked with a slight German accent.

- Poor description. This makes it sound like she's assuming the accent, not that it's natural.
- Why is the housekeeper always accented? What, people born in the USA don't need to take such jobs?


On the line beneath it I added, Smokes cigars. Will die of lung cancer. Hopefullly soon. Excellent physical shape.

- You do realize that 'will die of lung cancer' and 'excellent physical shape' shouldn't normally go together?
- Why did she scribble the last comment out? He's creepy about her; she should be creepy right back. Besides, it's the most Biology-related thing she's done yet.


I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but something about Patch wasn't right. Something about him wasn't normal. Something wasn't... safe.

- And yet you still descend into the depths of a bar that you're too young to be in to find him. Brilliant. Stanford is drooling over that.


"As it turns out, I'm in need of a healthy female sacrifice. I'd planned on luring her into trusting me first, but if you're ready now..."

- This would make a fine joke, if it was said in a lighthearted situation, a joking tone, and to someone who wasn't already scared of Patch. As is, it just shows that he's an insensitive bastard.


Patch casually but noticeably slid his sleeve down over his wrist. "You'd prefer it someplace more private?"

- And he officially has the Magical Ability to Turn Any Situation Into Something Perverted. Just fantastic, eh?


"Intelligent. Attractive. Vulnerable."

- PREDATOR. Singles out those who are on the outside edges, the weakest, and then takes them down. Basic predator/prey interaction. Nora is the deer with the broken leg in this one.


"I'm starting a petition to have Coach fired," Vee said, coming to my table.

- Why the hell is everyone referring to him as Coach? Is that his given first name? Or is he just such a whackjob that he prefers it even off the field? And besides, aren't there many coaches at this school? Vee could be referring to any of them!


"Let's give the seating chart a few more weeks. Oh, and I was serious about tutoring Patch. I'll count you in."

- WHAT. THE. FUCK. What kind of screwed-up school did you go to, Fitzpatz, that you think teachers are like this. They're NOT. Especially not to the good students, as Nora seems to be. Teachers aren't there for the money, they're there because teaching is what they want to do. No teacher will condone, facilitate, or even allow the abuse Patch dishes out to Nora, and no teacher would not only refuse to make a simple change to ease a studen's mind but also lassoo said student into tutoring someone she is afraid of.


Vee unlocked the doors to her 1995 purple Dodge Neon.

- What is it with Fitzpatz and the year, model, and make of these beat-up old cars? At the very least drop the year; NO ONE CARES. Hate to stereotype but your book will be read primarily by hormonal teenage girls. You don't need to appeal to the inner car mechanic in most of them, trust me.


I had never been seriously interested in anyone. How wierd was I? "It isn't about the boys, it's about... love. I haven't found it."

- WHAT THE FUCK. AGAIN. NOT HAVING INTENSE CRUSHES DOESN'T MAKE YOU A FREAKSHOW. GOD. (and I don't use that lightly, as an atheist.) Seriously, talk to a couple of teenagers. I personally am DAMN FUCKING PROUD to have made it to sixteen years old without a first kiss. No, I'm not shitting you. Sometimes high school boys are just stupid and not worth your time; there's no shame in that. Hell, I can name someone who shares my 'romantic state' and is two years older than I am. Assuming that all teenagers are horny little idiots and that high school 'romance' is the center of their universe makes no one look worse than the IDIOT AUTHOR.
- Now, keeping in mind that I have little romantic experience, point two. Saving yourself for your One Twoo Wuv is all well and good in fairy tales, but in real life is impractical. Like anything you pin all your hopes on, the potential for disaster is enormous. You know the saying 'the bigger they are, the harder they fall'? Applies double to expectations. Build yourself up and it'll just be worse if/when it goes wrong. And let's face it, Nora's idiot enough that it's GONNA GO WRONG.


"Someday this is going to be us. Ravished by half-dressed cowboys. I wonder what it's like to kiss a pair of sunbaked, mud-crusted lips?"

- MEMO TO VEE AND ALL ROMANCE WRITERS: 'Ravished' does not mean wild, passionate, consensual, kinky sex on a rug. It. MEANS. RAPE. I don't need to go on and on about how Rape Is Wrong. I think review readers understand that. I wish authors did. This word makes me so incredibly angry I can't even- I just can't.


My sixth sense graduated to high alert.

- I swear, 'alert' should be replaced by 'school'. At least then it would be funny. As it is, SENTENCEFAIL.


At first I couldn't distinguish any facial features, and then I realized he was wearing a ski mask.

- First off, one word: CLICHE. (This is the Review Of Much Caps.)
- 'At first' she couldn't distinguish facial features... and then she realized she couldn't distinguish facial features due to the ski mask. Okay, so why the 'at first'?


I watched with horror as the door began to bow. He was tearing- it- off.

- How much will you bet me this turns out to be Patch?
- Dramatic- dashes- do- not- achieve- effect.


Lifting my eyes just high enough to get a look at him without appearing that I was, I took in his fine-boned, handsome face. Blond hair hung at his shoulders. Eyes the color of chrome. Unshaven. Impeccably dressed in a tailored jacket over his green sweater and dark designer jeans.

- Tried to picture outfit; failed. Asked friend Fashion Maven to picture outfit; she rejected it. Conclude that 'Impeccably' doesn't mean what Fitzpatz thinks it means.
- Brought this scene up to other friend and she made good point. Why are they having breakfast at a bistro on a school morning? I could understand Vee doing this, as she doesn't give a crap for her grades, but Nora's suppsed to be Ivy-League caliber. Also, Wikipedia will tell you that bistros are defined by their food- namely things which are cooked SLOWLY. Like, say, exactly the kind of thing you really don't want to be eating when you have to be in class on time? Yeah, precisely like that.


"Mmm, check it out," said Vee. "Mr. Green Sweater is getting out of his seat. Now that's a body that hits the gym regularly. He is definitely making his way toward us, his eyes pursuing the real estate, your real estate, that is."

- Run-on sentence; the last comma should be a period.
- Editorfail: Pursuing? Or did you mean 'perusing'? Though I wouldn't put it past any of these characters to get the two mixed up... if they know the word 'perusing' in the first place...
- I have officially joined the Veehaters.


When he didn't answer, I turned sideways. "Soap. Shampoo. Hot water."
"Naked. I know the drill."

- How does this supposed supernatural creature have the exact same Awkwardness Summon abilities as a regular hormonal human teenage boy?
- SQUICK PATCH. SQUICK.


"Nora." The warning in Coach's voice pulled me back to my quiz, but I couldn't help speculating about what Patch's answer might have been, and it had me wanting to slide far away from him.

- This would have been an excellent point for Fitzpatz to show us that Nora is smart and a good student, the kind of person who would have to choose between Ivies for college. Instead, she leaves us with the telling of this we got earlier and shows us Nora as a hormonal idiot who is distracted by a guy she finds creepy. Sorry if I don't believe the characterization I was told and instead go with what I was shown.


My voice caught on the word, and I wondered if after today I would ever feel like calling Vee my friend again.

- Pity this didn't occur to Nora earlier.
- And yet this comment doesn't come into play later. Where's the ongoing doubt in Vee's trustworthiness or the value of her friendship? At the Delphic Amusement Park, for instance?


I was all alone, free do to as I pleased.
I came to a stop at the third door on the left. I sucked in a breath and knocked, but it was obvious from the darkened window that the room was empty. I pushed on the door.

- This may seem a minor nitpick, but SENTENCE VARIATION, DAMMIT. Four sentences in a row that start with 'I (past tense verb)' are amateur. Seriously, I used to pull this formulaic shit to get out of required writing assignments when I was in elementary school. Any close-reading editor should have caught this and made Fitzpatz rewrite this little section so that it was smoother and, oh, MATURE.


He jerked his chin out the door. "I need you to exit the building immediately."

- Mental image: chin flies out the door. Hilarious, but stupid.
- I dunno about Fitzpatz, but I've actually been at school during a bomb threat. And you know what they do? THEY MAKE YOU STAY PUT. You don't leave the building or even the room, especially if you're in someplace where a student shouldn't be. This reaction is ridiculous.


"All the seats here are taken," I said. When he didn't answer, I grabbed my glass back and took a sip of water, accidentally swallowing an ice cube. It burned the whole way down. "Shouldn't you be working instead of fraternizing with customers?"

- Where's the choking 'Gaaaack, gaaack' that is normal aftermath of swallowing an ice cube? Maybe it's a nitpick, but if you're going to make your main character do something like that, use all aspects of it- wouldn't it be interesting to have her embarass herself this way in front of Patch?


Even though it would probably come back to haunt me, I was curious enough about Patch to go almost anywhere with him.
"I want to get you alone," Patch said.

- Do I even have to make the comment here? Good. Because I can't compose myself enough to get past the DLSKJF; STUPID CHARACTER rant stage. So it's nice that this one speaks for itself.


He was dressed in knee-length basketball shorts and a white Nike sweatshirt.

- What kind of imbecile wears a sweatshirt to PE, when you know you'll be sweating buckets and giving off heat like nobody's business?


"Run!" my team shouted from the dugout. "Run, Nora!"
I ran.
"Drop the bat!" they screamed.
I flung it aside.
"Stay on first base!"
I didn't.

- The hell? Someone who doesn't do well in sports and doesn't like them much isn't going to go for the gusto. You take first base and you stick with it, because it's better than getting struck out. So either Nora has no strategic/logical brain at all (possible) or Patch being there completely screwed it up. (possible).
- Choppy writing supposed to be dramatic? Because it's not.


"Trust me, Dorth, there are no boys in my life." Okay, maybe there were two lurking on the fringe, circling from afar, but since I didn't know either very well, and one outright frightened me, it felt safer to close my eyes and pretend they weren't there.

- Patch OUTRIGHT FRIGHTENS HER. Feh. Warning sign much, you airhead?
- The imagery here makes both boys sound like sharks. Eeew. Not a healthy image if you expect her to fall in love with one of them.


Dorothea had moved down the hall to the powder room.

- No teenager in their right minds would seriously use the words 'powder room' in place of 'bathroom'. Sorry, no dice, Fitzpatz.


(To Be Continued in comments)

[destiny ♡ howling libraries · Rating 1 out of 5]

“If I'd wanted you dead five minutes ago, you'd have died five minutes ago.”

It’s been about a year since I read this, so I’m not even going to try to give it a full review. I just really want it off of my “RTC” shelf, so I’m going to sum this up in a few points:

1. I hate this writing. I hate it so much. The narrative voice is everything I don’t miss about late 2000s YA fantasy.

2. Nora is a tremendously boring, unenjoyable protagonist. I remember nothing about her at all except how bored I was by her existence.

3. I promise I’m not here to judge anyone, but I heard so many people swoon over Patch that I expected… well, not this. He’s awful, toxic, gross, pushy, has no respect whatsoever for Nora or anything she wants, and genuinely made me want to punch myself in the face at least three times a chapter.

That’s it. This book was awful. I had to force myself to skim the last third or so just because I wanted to see if it got any better. It didn’t. I have no desire to ever continue this series and will not recommend this book to anyone, ever. I’m so grateful that, over the last decade, YA romance has (mostly) moved away from this over-the-top toxicity in male love interests.

[human · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you are thinking about reading this book: run. For real. It's just Twilight except everyone is horny but fallen angels. No one deserves to shed braincells the way I did while reading this.

Looking back on this, I only have one question. Actually, two:
- WHY THE FORK DID I READ THIS?

although more importantly:
- WHY THE FORK WAS THIS PUBLISHED?

Basically, I just wanna


Yes, that was neccessary, and yes, I am Very Mature.

Spoiler and rant warning. Seriously. You should know me by now. If you liked this book, don't read this, if you don't want spoilers, don't read this. It's easy. I know that a lot of my GR friends actually liked this, so maybe don't blast me too hard?



Now, where was I?

Oh yeah.

Trying to make sense of this trainwreck.

So, basically, doing the impossible.

There are so many problems with this book I have no clue where to start. For one, there's the whole matter of Nora's relationship with Patch (wtf sort of name is that anyway), and how dense/idiotic she is. Then there's the fact that laws regarding minors just don't seem to exist in this world. No plot (as usual) and no character development (as usual).

*sigh*

I don't know why I do this to myself other than to release anger in a healthy, semi-productive way.

Well, let's get into it.



First of all, there's Nora Grey, the main character. It was PAINFUL to be inside her head for however long this atrocity lasted. She's full of contradictions and has a disgusting case of not-like-other-grills. Not to mention, there's her problematic (and quite honestly, creepy) relationship with Patch, a fallen angel. (I mean, come on, what sort of a name is Patch???) From the very beginning, she's dRaWn To HiM, even though he is creepy incarnate and makes her feel uncomfortable. She's always paranoid, but, to be fair, she has good reason to be. She constantly has inner monologues about how she needs to stay away from him because he is nothing but trouble (he says as much about himself), but as soon as she's near him: POOF. There goes any semblance of common sense.



Then, of course, there's Patch.



He's shady as hell and is with Nora even though she says no (at first). He admits that he stalks her and only inserted himself into her life so he could kill her. The author tries to start the romance as an enemies-to-lovers, but it's just bad insta-love. Don't worry though; the trying-to-kill-her-as-a-sacrifice is all okay, since TrUe LuRrRrRvE interfered and now he loves her. Definitely.

Sound familiar yet?



uh YEAH. Me too. But Nora, because she's soooo smart and not like other grills, instead of being like this:

(pretend that's patch's face instead of edward)

is like this:


Ridiculous, right?! It makes no sense! But everyone is falling head over heels for this guy, so I guess I'll keep the bashing to a minimum.

*continues to mutter about stalker love interests*

Then there's the issue of there being no child-protection laws in this world. You know, the ones that if you're a minor, you can't be questioned without your parents present, and whatnot? Yeah, those just don't exist. Paranormal activity attracts the attention of local law enforcement (obviously), and poor ickle Nora, who's so lost and confused about what's going on, is caught up in the middle of it.



What's more is that when she goes to ask her biology teacher (also shady af. he's probably got some story arc later in the series but i'm not willing to put myself through any more of this) to change seats because Patch Is Being Creepy, he pretty much laughs at her and assigns her as his tutor.



Um WHAT? Yeah, IDK, but it's weird and clearly messed up.

There's a lot of foreshadowing to the point it becomes verrry obvious very quickly what exactly is going on. Like, come on. I'm not that stupid.

The characters are horribly developed (except to make them annoying and hateable) and there isn't a plot to speak of. The entire book is mostly just Nora being clueless but turned on when Patch is creepy. There's random story arcs thrown around like it's nothing and then randomly burned because reasons.

Honestly, I hated this, and that's 8 hours of my life I'm never getting back.

I'm pretty sure the entire time I was reading this I was in varying degrees of

and

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh My God OMG OMG OMG! Just finished Hush Hush one minute ago. I freaking LOVE this book!!!!!!! Fave book of the year!

Edit: Here's a more err professional review.

After reading the first two chapters on the Simon & Schuster website, I knew I would love this book. And sure enough, I did. It's not like this topic hasn't been done before, forbidden romance. However Becca has written a novel with the same idea but the writing is exceptional. Reading Hush Hush was like riding a roller coaster, the story moves in a fast pace and before you know it, it's over. I long to go back into Patch's and Nora's world and experience everything again.

Nora is an excellent protagonist. Like Patch describes her, she's attractive, intelligent and vulnerable. Her emotions are perfectly captured and portrayed. Patch is a very intriguing guy and more so when he is reluctant to talk about his past. Though he can be provocative --and flirtatious at times, he is very attractive and has this 'good' side of him. Despite Nora feeling uncomfortable with Patch, she is drawn to him. Her best friend, Vee, is affable but don't insult her because she can be rather sharp-tongued!

There is one part towards the end when everything seemed so surreal (hint: that part reminded me of Cassandra Clare's City of Bones), I wanted Nora to run and hug Patch. I wanted to cry during that part, honestly. I can feel Nora's pain and when she questions her sanity, I got quite a bit emotional at that point.

I hereby declare Patch from Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick my favourite YA guy. Trust me, by the time you are done with Hush Hush, you'll be like Edward who?

FULL REVIEW OVER HERE: http://readthisbook.wordpress.com/200...

[Jessica Olson · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 stars.
I read this book when I was 16. I loved it a lot back at the time, but I never finished it because I couldn't get the third and final book. A few weeks ago I got them from a thrift store and decided to re-read it.
I didn't remember the plot of the book, only the fact that it's about fallen angels and the simple fact that I loved this book so much.
To be honest, I was skeptical about this book. My taste has changed over the years, and I didn't know if I would love it like I did before.
But here I am, after a very quick read. I started reading it on July 27, and it was only 5 days. Most of the time I wasn't even at home. I went to a concert and meetings so I didn't have time to read it, otherwise I would probably finish it on the second day lol.
Rare are the books I read so quickly and it says quite a bit about the book. The last time I gave it 5 stars, this time I took off half a star. don't get me wrong- it was amazing, interesting and it dragged me into the plot so I couldn't stop. But the only reason I took off a half star is probably because I grew up and teen books that tell about love when the characters see each other for the first time, bother me a little.
Anyway, the book was amazing and I can't wait to read the second book in the series.

[Isa Cantos (Crónicas de una Merodeadora) · Rating 2 out of 5]

”Keep in mind that people change, but the past doesn’t”.

[2,75]

Vaya experiencia ha sido releer este libro casi diez años después de la primera vez. Recuerdo que cuando estaba en el colegio y me encontré con Hush Hush me lo devoré en dos días y estaba enamoradísima de Patch. No podía dejar de pensar en ángeles caídos y en lo guapos que eran. Y sí, en ese momento le di cinco estrellas al libro. ¿Hoy? Bueno… digamos que dejo la calificación en 2,75 por la nostalgia que me genera la historia.

Ahora, todos sabemos que Hush Hush va sobre Nora, una chica de 15 años que, de un momento a otro, tiene que empezar a trabajar en el colegio con un chico alto, guapísimo, misterioso y algo borde. A pesar de lo mucho que lo intenta y de que sospecha que esconde muchos secretos, no puede evitar sentirse atraída por Patch. Y, bueno, poco a poco la historia nos va revelando que Patch no es un simple humano y que, además, hay problemas entre los ángeles caídos, los arcángeles y la milenaria raza de los Nefilim.

Voy a ser completamente honesta y voy a decirles que hoy, diez años después, siento que este libro es taaaaan introductorio. Realmente la trama es mínima y el desarrollo de los personajes también. Creo que Nora se enamora demasiado rápido de Patch y él lo único que ha hecho por conquistarla es respirar, de verdad. Las súper frases que antes me parecían “románticas” son horribles. A ver, yo soy una persona súper cursi y a la que le encanta el amor y los corazones en los libros, pero es que las cosas que le decía Patch a Nora eran tan cringe que madre mía.

¿Y la trama? Es que tampoco pasa mucho en el libro… Creo que todo se compone un poco sobre el final cuando vemos la amenaza real que existe sobre Nora, pero más allá de eso todo es bastante blando. Y, de hecho, creo que la trama de Hush Hush se vale de muchísimos elementos (algunos casi calcados) de Twilight y por eso se me hizo bastante repetitiva.

Pero, oye, al final esto es un experimento y nunca esperé que me gustara tanto el libro a como lo hizo cuando tenía 16 años. De todas maneras, siempre pensaré que estas sagas son una gran puerta para que los jóvenes se vuelvan súper lectores y, eventualmente, conozcan otras series y autores que les van a volar aún más la cabeza.

[MischaS_ · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 star

Well .... I guess I can say I've done that now ... *tosses book in the trash*

I was recommended this book by one of my best friends who, before now, I thought had great taste in books. I am now questioning our friendship (kidding, kidding).

I really thought I was going to love this book. It had so many ingredients that I like. Hot boys, Dark hero, romance, danger. Turns out it also had about a bazillion of the ingredients I don't like. Predictability, instalove, abusive and controlling behavior being glorified. And to top it off, this book hit the cliché nail on the head!

No thanks. Not for me.

The Story

"A SACRED OATH
A FALLEN ANGEL
A FORBIDDEN LOVE"

Sounds awesome right?

Patch is an overprotective (bordering on abusive) fallen angel. Nora is a typical high school student. Aaaaaand we all know where this is going don't we?

What I Did Not Like


Let's have a little talk about controlling and abusive behavior for a second. It's not cute/hot/attractive!!! Our "hero" tends to be a bit on the stalker-y/overprotective/abusive side of things and I do not feel like the issues with this behavior were ever really addressed. I just don't see a relationship starting out like this to be a lasting formula. I strongly feel like it is very dangerous for books like this to glorify and romanticize this type of behavior/situation.

The target demographic for this book is young teenagers who are just starting to explore the idea of romantic love and sex. I really didn't have anyone to teach me what a healthy relationship was and how to spot dangerous red flags in my relationships. because of this, I ended up falling for the quintessential "bad boy" and it did not go well. Unfortunately, a lot of people in this target demographic live with similar situations. This controlling, stalker-y trope needs to be addressed. I repeat ... IT IS NOT OK!

Instalove by the truckloads which is legit my second least favorite trope of all time. Insta-lust I get. It happens. But to take this normal human reaction and portray it as true, deep, lasting romance is absurd and I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT! *Drops mic*

*Picks mic back up because I forgot I wasn't finished*

Predictability... so much predictability. I'm sure that after my short synopsis above you could accurately guess the entire plot of this story.

And as if that was not enough .... let's throw a good old fashion love triangle in there with yet more overprotective stalker-y/abusive behavior. Sounds goooooood to me... NOT!

In Conclusion

I think maybe you can tell that I was not a fan? Yeah... I think that was obvious.

There was just nothing about this story that made it special or unique to me. I think perhaps I may have enjoyed this when I was younger, but hey, I was dumb and glorifying overprotective abusive relationships of my own at the time.

New refined me says NO to this book and I will not be continuing with this series.

[s · Rating 1 out of 5]

my eyes are crying out in pain because they had to suffer through 35 pages of this cringe filled garbage.

yes, i dnfed at page 35, i don't hate myself enough to continue reading on.

on page 20(?), after meeting our "love interest" for O N E D A Y, Nora feels an irresistible connection to him akdhskj fuck off, good night.

also, Patch is a fucking creep. have a nice day.

[Tina (Fantastic Book Review) · Rating 5 out of 5]

So after reading Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick something unexpected happened. This is my story:
*************************
Leaving my house around 6:25pm, I headed out the door and I thought, just my luck on one of the most important days of my life, it’s raining cats and dogs.

I hopped into my car and raced to my appointment in hopes of not being late. I finally arrived at the building with 3 minutes to spare. I jumped out my car without grabbing an umbrella and jogged to the entrance. As I’m walking down the hall, I see my reflection in the mirror. “God I look horrid! “ You know that look – like you’ve been dumped over the head with a bucket of water. “Oh, well there’s nothing I can do about that now.”

Finally this is it. I’m standing at the entrance of the door that could be my possible salvation. I take a deep breath and try to control my nerves as much as possible. “Here goes nothing.” I knock on the door.

Dr. Chen opens the door. “Hi Tina, it’s so nice to see you again. Come in, what can I do for you today?”

I make my way over to the couch across from Dr. Chen’s desk and take a seat. At this point everything imaginable is going through my head.

“Uh-hum” Dr. Chen clears his throat rescuing me from my jumbled thoughts.

“I’m so sorry to disturb you at such a late hour, but I needed someone to talk to.”

“No worries, my door is always open for you, now what seems to be the matter?”

I shake my head “I don’t know where to start.”

“Now, now my dear, It will be alright." He coos. "Just start from the beginning.”

His voice is soothing. “It all started with this book I read.”

Dr. Chen arches a brow. “A book you say?”

“Yes, it’s called Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick.”

Dr. Chen nods. “Ok, go on.”

I couldn’t take this, so I blurted. “I think I’m obsessed Dr. Chen!” There. It’s out. I’ve said it.

Dr. Chen looks confused. “What makes you think that dear?”

“There’s this character in the book named Patch and he’s all I ever think about. I don’t know what’s wrong with me!”

He squints and eyes me curiously. “What do you mean he’s all you think about?”
Oh My God. I bet he thinks I’m crazy! And as if he could read my mind, he says.

“Tina, whatever you tell me stays between us, Patient – Doctor Confidentiality.” This is reassuring, so I go on.

“Dr. Chen, I seem to be obsessed with a fictional character! Is that normal?”

“Hmm.” He nods. “I see, well let me just grab my journal and see if we can put your mind at ease.”

He walks over to his bookshelf and grabs a journal and flips to a page.

“Yes, Yes here it is.” He slides the journal over to me and points at a photo on the page. I’m taken back by the photo staring up at me. It’s a photo of Edward Cullen, but that’s not what catches my attention, it’s the photo next to it of a dark haired, dark eyed Angel that seem to see right into your soul. Patch Cipriano.

I look up at Dr. Chen accusingly. “What is this? Why do you have pictures of fictional characters? Is this some kind of joke?”

He shakes his head. “I’m afraid not Tina. What you see here is a typical case of Hush, Hush fanaticism.”

“What? What exactly does that mean?”

“It’s rather simple really, Tina what you are experiencing is quite normal.”

“Normal? How is this obsession normal?”

“Let me put your mind at ease dear, you are not the only one who’s experienced this.”

“I’m not!” I can’t believe it. I breathe a sigh of relief, then point to the picture of Patch. “How do I fix th-th-this? Whatever this is?”

Dr. Chen smirks. “Quite easily actually, all you have to do is reread the book until he’s out of your system.”

“Huh? Is that possible?”

“Of Course!” He points to the photo of Patch. “Now, why don’t you tell me how you came to be obsessed with this character Patch?”

“Do you think it will help?”

“I most certainly do!”

I take a deep breath and tell him my story.
*************************
If I didn’t know anything about this book, I don’t think I would ever have thought that Hush, Hush was Fitzpatrick’s debut novel. The writing is brilliant! Becca took me on a journey and I was thoroughly entertained. I was caught up in the world wind of Nora & Patch at the first page, this book is addictive and I could not put it down for one minute. I broke all my review rules to read this book and that’s saying a lot!

Fitzpatrick did a fantastic job with the characters in Hush, Hush. I laughed throughout this book at Nora and Vee’s conversations and strange dealings. These characters are so relatable paranormal aside. This is one of the reasons I love this book, these characters are downright fun and entertaining.

What can I say about Patch? Tall, Dark & Dangerously Sexy! I don’t know why he’s so alluring, maybe it’s because he’s a Bad Boy. Whatever it is, Becca did an incredible job portraying him and I can finally confess that Patch is my new fictional crush! I found myself smiling throughout this whole book.

I love when a book can keep me guessing. This book kept me turning the pages for so many reasons. I had to know what would happen next, whether it was for sizzling scenes with Patch & Nora or downright hilarious moments with Nora & Vee or even the strange things happening around Nora. I absolutely, positively devoured every page! Well as you can see, I’m Hush, Hush’s #1 fan!

I love everything about this book. I will definitely follow the doctor’s order and reread this book until I can get Patch out of my system, which may be never. So Help Me God!

[₊ ˚ ale ࿓ ♡ ⋆｡˚ · Rating 1 out of 5]

oMG, I LOVE PATCH CIPRIANO WITH MY ENTIRE LIFE. HE'S AMAZING, THE LOVE OF MY LIFE AND THE MOST HANDSOME GUY. I WANT SOMEONE LIKE HIM.

Perhaps that's what my 14/15 yo me thought back when I first read hush hush. Now, I just ask myself: "what the hell was I thinking?" My middle school best friend bought this book and we both read it at the same time back in 2012. So I guess my issues with guys started over there, lmao. I guess Hush Hush was the first book we ever read, loooool.

Patch Cipiriano is the blueprint for the dark-haired and bad guys, right? I shamefully confess that I was deeply in love with Patch and I used to say that I wanted a guy like him... I was blind, young, naïve and stupid, so, let's not pay attention to my old me.

So, let's start.

We have our protagonist, Nora Grey, our average girl who has an average life: her father died and her mom works out of the city most part of the time, so, she has to take care of herself. Nora doesn't get herself in trouble, in fact, she tries not to seek them out. One day, in her biology class, the coach switch partners so the "new guy" has to sit up next to Nora.

But, there's a thing: Patch looks like he's dangerous. The classic bad guy who people warn you to stay away from. Unlikely the regular people, Nora feels attracted to Patch, his secrets and mysterious aura. Weird shit start to occur since that day and it's related to Patch, so, Nora wants to know why.

The writing.
I gotta say that I'm not a fan of 1st person pov. I honestly hate it, but I have to tolerate it anyways. It was a little bit fast-pacing, so it was easy to swallow. The English level of this book was comprehensible and honestly I liked it because I didn't have to google any term and I'm proud of myself for it. Yay me.

The characters.
Nora has the personality of a shoe (as I said in another review, even shoes has more personality than these girls). She's really stupid and thinks that she's smart. Back in 2009, the "oh, i don't go out to parties" and "i don't like to get in trouble" tropes were supreme, trust me. So, we have here a girl who doesn't like to go out... Wait, I don't like to go out to parties either, does that makes me a unique, speshul and different girl?

Anyhow, Nora has a hard time trying to put two and two together. She falls in love with the guy who tries to kill her and oh, that he's a fallen angel too. She says Patch that she doesn't like him calling her "angel", but he does it anyway and ugh, I wanted to kick him several times.

The only development that Nora has is realizing that Patch is a fallen angel and a bunch of information that reminded me of Twilight: Bella googling about vampires, but here we have Nora googling about angels/fallen angels.

No, wait, that's not even a development, so, we have none.

Ahhhh, the gorgeous and desired Patch Cipriano. Me and my middle school best friend used to fangirl really hard over Patch. We didn't know how to recognize the red flags and the toxic traits, because, of course, we were naïve, dumb and we were "in love". Now, I regret of saying that I wanted a Patch as a boyfriend. I found many of them when I was 14/15, and honestly, those guys were cool, but I hated them and toyed with them a few times (yes, I'm a bitch, but that prevented me of having more heartbreaks, yassss)

Anyhow, Patch is a fucking dick. He literally possessed Nora's body and has a fucking thing to lock himself with Nora in the girls' bathrooms, ew, fucking disgusting. All that attitude of "bad guy" and gambler does not help him for me to think he's hot. He's not. He's creepy, a stalker and awful. He forced Chauncey/Jules to give him an oath so Patch could possess him for two weeks. I honestly can understand Jule's resentment and hatre toward Patch for what he did to him.

So, dear Patch: fuck you so much. <3

Vee was the only braincell here, but sometimes I wanted to kick her too.

The girl-on-girl hate is amazing. How or why do you call someone "anorexic pig"???? Let's move and stop the hate between us, please.

I didn't feel any romance here. I felt more like Patch coaxed many thoughts on Nora so she could fall for him and wanted to kiss him, so, yikes.

The tension between Patch and Nora was killing me, but not in the good way. I wanted to kick them and made them to get a room, lmao.

I'm rating this book 1.5 stars because of the memories when I was young, and for getting me out of my reading slump.

[Kristi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three words; hot, mysterious, heavenly

Hush, Hush is one of those addicting reads. There is something about it, you can't quite place your finger on it, but all you know is that you need more, right now!

Most surprising for me was liking Nora. Usually I can't stand her type of character. But for some reason she reminded me of my sister! Completely book smart, but doesn't have the common sense that god gave a goose. (Yes, Lace, I'm talking about you!) Patch on the other hand, where do I even start. You'll either love him, hate him, or hate him so much you love him. He's the epitome of the "bad boy".... hot, dark, mysterious and cocky as hell. Characterization was awesome. I love when I have such strong emotions toward characters, it's a compliment to the authors ability to make such a three dimensional character, and Fitzpatrick is right on!

The plot was insane, twist upon twist, up until the final pages. I could not put down. The pages inside are just as hot as the cover. Loved the history and explanation of the lore as well. The plot was just really well executed.

The writing itself was fantastic as well. Fitzpatrick has a distinct story telling ability. It seems she's able to tell the story effortlessly and all the while keeping the readers interest profoundly intact.

I can't wait to read the next installment in this series!

[mark monday · Rating 2 out of 5]

Of course this is trash, but it was so creepy and absurd at times that I feel like I should give it more than 1 star. The so bad it's good-ness of it all was kinda fascinating. This was a top YA novel a decade ago? Wow, that's wild.

synopsis: what happens when a boy stalker finally "reaches out" to the girl he's stalking, and also wants to kill, and it turns out she can be a stalker too, and then a third stalker tries to get between them and then all of a sudden there's a fourth stalker who's been there all along?

what happens is... R ❤ O ❤ M ❤ A ❤ N ❤ C ❤ E!!

our 4 stalkers, Patch & Nora & Dabria & Jules:



one of them is a fallen angel, another is a death angel, a third is a descendant of angels, and the fourth is having what's known as "trouble with angels". you figure out who is who, no spoilers allowed!

NEXT WILL BE SPOILERS
but honestly who cares - if this is your kind of book, you should have read it already. and if you haven't by now, that doesn't matter either because the book is 10 years old and Young Adult years are like dog years so it has basically been around for what feels like 70 years and so you know all about it anyway.

I have so many parts of this book lodged up in my mind that I'm still dumbfounded by, I just don't know if I can list them all. I could go on and on about the worst best friend ever - I mean this girl doesn't just continually humiliate our heroine in public, she calls in a bomb threat to the high school to enable her buddy's stalking, and later tries to force her to go camping with some dude that just physically assaulted her (not the hero this time, and not even a stalker, just the third point on the love triangle) by excusing it as "he was just drunk" because LOL isn't that a great excuse! but I not only can't stand that character, she's not even a stalker either, so I'm not going to waste more time on Worst Best Friend. although I think I just wasted a lot of time on her.

instead I will just treasure the memory of that one stalking scene (so many to choose from) where the heroine goes from a booth in a restaurant to the bathroom to change into what appears to be a hooker outfit so that she can question a bartender at the same restaurant. that was definitely some creative stalking investigating and the hooker outfit was um completely necessary.

the hero has - in addition to chiseled abs, dangerous eyes that you can get lost in, and apparently a body that smells like a combination of mint and cigars (not joking) - quite a lot of mysterious powers. these powers include telepathy, which allows him to cheekily and sometimes sexily enter her mind to read her thoughts and sexually harass her and of course eventually save her life and - in another moment I will always treasure - help her do better at baseball.

I know that the other big controversy about this book besides the stalking is the hero's tendency to invade the heroine's personal space and get super handsy and say dirty things to her, often in the middle of class with the teacher egging him on, but I'm not going to critique that, because even though the heroine says she doesn't want him to do that she often realizes she loves it and then she often realizes she hates it because he's scary except that she actually loves it, he's so hot, except no she actually hates it, he's a predator, no he's her protector, except that he literally said he planned on killing her, except she thinks he can't possibly mean it, so she loves it, except she actually feels she hates it, except she actually loves it, no she hates how he chases her around the parking garage, well she may as well get a ride home from him after that, go ahead and invite yourself in and there are some knives you can wave around at me that's not threatening at all because he's just making tacos, no she hates it no she loves it no she actually doesn't appreciate being locked in a motel room with him, no she loves it, oops all of her clothes are soaked and there's only a towel to wear, oops his t-shirt is soaked better take it off, no she hates it, no, really, she loves it, so I guess it's all okay and consensual, and after all, he does love her! love wins!

fun fact: did you know there is a whole subgenre of erotic fiction devoted to "mind control"?

well everyone has their kinks, so I'm not judging. oh yes I am. Becca Fitzgerald clearly loves this subgenre. poor weak-minded Stalker #2 (our heroine) gets mind-controlled so hard and so long by Stalker #1 (hero) & Stalker #4 (final boss) that it goes from weird to confusing to uh oh am I reading about a fetish that the author accidentally decided to tell the world about? at first, it's relatively harmless mind control, like making you think your seat belt flew off and causing you to almost fall out of a roller coaster but you don't, LOL he's just messing with you, he doesn't really want to kill you, except he does. but at the *cough* climax, it's no longer just illusions anymore, boyfriend psychically enters girlfriend's body to literally control how her body moves, and it's just so literal I was like Author! c'mon! and of course it's to save her life so no harm no foul, that's kind of an assumed consent, right? make that body move bro, she loves it. oops, now she's dead. but don't worry - he also has the power to raise that hot teen body from the dead!

a happy ending: of course all's well that ends well because our hero levels up into a "guardian angel" (for real) and so now he gets to literally stalk her forever. and maybe a little mind control too, to keep things fresh?



Postscript

Sometime in late 2011, after my great experience reading Catching Fire, I went on a giant Young Adult buying binge because I realized I had fallen wildly in love with the genre. Although that love eventually turned into more of an earnest and realistic friendship, I am still very fond of YA.

Anyway, here's what I've read and what I still need to read:

Brightly Woven 2 stars
Mockingjay 4 stars
Feed 3 stars
Divergent 2 stars
Blood Red Road 2 stars
The Maze Runner 3 stars
The Forest of Hands and Teeth 2 stars
Vampire Academy 3 stars
The Space Between 3 stars
Graceling 4 stars
The Replacement 2 stars
City of Bones 3 stars
Hush, Hush 2 stars

Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta
The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell
Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor
Ashfall by Mike Mullin
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
Incarceron by Catherine Fisher
The Secret Hour by Scott Westerfeld
Everlost by Neal Shusterman
Hero by Perry Moore 3 stars
The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith 2 stars
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness 2 stars

Only halfway finished! Yikes, better pick up the pace, not going to live forever unlike Patch.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rock hard abs, tall, lean, this is Patch Cipriano.
This might sound like a hot advertisement for underwear or perfume, but ladies and gents, this is the man. That's right, in the flesh.


May I also note the simple and average teenager, Nora? At least, that's what she was until she met Patch.:)
Yes, this story will definitely gives you the feels, especially between Patch and Nora. *Evil Grin*
But of course, you'll definitely be experiencing more than Patch's hands.
Hmmm. Let's see. With the mysterious murder of Nora's father and these mysterious friends of Patch, this little romance is more than an average love story.
Let me just tell you that the cover of this book isn't just for show and tell. This might just be someone we so dearly love.;)
Maybe Patch isn't just a cute boy at school.
Remember, keep this a secret.
Hush, Hush.

[Katie(babs) · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I first heard about Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick, I was both intrigued and wary. The reason I was wary was because Hush, Hush is very comparable to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. Now if an author can ride on Meyer’s coattails and have an original idea and really make it shine, I’m all for that. But in the case of Hush, Hush I’m afraid to say that Becca has not only ridden on Meyer’s coattails, but hopped on her back and took every single thing from Twilight and placed it in Hush, Hush. The comparisons between Twilight and Hush, Hush are too strong not to ignore and honestly, Hush, Hush reads like a Twilight fan fiction where Becca decided to change the characters and a bit of the plot that fails in so many ways. If you’re going to take someone else’s idea and try to build on it, at least be smart about it.

Nora Grey and her best friend Vee Sky, who Nora calls her “un-twin” enjoy working for their school’s eZine in Coldwater, a town in Maine where the fog is very thick. Nora lives on the outskirts of town in an eighteenth century farmhouse with her mother who works for an auction company that requires a great deal of traveling. Nora’s father is no longer around because he was shot to death. But Nora is seeing a therapist to come to terms about her father’s death. She feels as if her father is watching her from above because she has always felt a presence watching over her from a distance.

Nora is in for a surprise when she goes to her Biology class and her teacher decides to change the seating chart. Nora’s new Bio partner is the new transfer who goes by the name of Patch. The new guy is dark very much in the literal sense from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. He has “cool black eyes” and when his eyes slice into Nora, she feels a “gloomy darkness like a shadow” over her. Patch also has an interesting scent to him, of “something richer, fouler”, much like cigars. Nora and Patch’s introduction doesn’t go that well because he is very rude, crude and speaks in sexual innuendos. His disrespect towards Nora makes her very uncomfortable.

You would think a guy like Patch, who is very much a verbal bully would make Nora offended. But there is something about Patch that speaks to her as in, this guy is a jerk and seems dangerous, but he looks good in black, so I’m going to find out whatever I can about him. Because Vee is also very noisy, she and Nora team up to find about Patch’s deep dark secrets.

Around the same time Nora begins her investigation; strange things start to happen. She runs over a guy in a ski mask with her car who then attacks her by bashing in her window. She begins seeing this phantom ski mask person everywhere after. Also, two new boys have entered on the scene. Jules and Elliott meet Nora and Vee at a bistro. Elliott has transferred from Kinghorn Prep to Coldwater High. Vee is over the moon at having fresh blood… two new cute boys to hang out with. Jules, who still attends Kinghorn, is moody and rude while Elliott, who at first seems pretty nice, becomes very aggressive and mean for no reason. Nora realizes something is up with Elliott and Jules, just because they are so moody and mean! And because Nora is such a great sleuth, she goes to the library and Google’s Elliott’s name where she finds out he may or may have not murdered a girl at Kinghorn.

As all this is going on, Patch seems to pop up wherever Nora is. He taunts her, much like a rebel on his motorcycle (which he has) and dares her to come walk on the wild side with him. They go on a scary ride at the boardwalk, he comes to her house and makes her dinner but holds a knife in such a way that Nora thinks he may stab her at one point with it. Whenever she is in dark scary places, Patch is there with his cold black eyes. And Nora thinks she is going crazy because she swears she can hear Patch talking in her head.

And again the sleuth that Nora is, where she has channeled Nancy Drew, goes to the library and begins to research fallen angels because of some strange V like scars on Patch’s back that are “angel wing scars”. Nora now knows that Patch is not human. And things become worse because someone is out to hurt Nora. Vee is caught in the middle, and Jules and Elliott are also be involved. Nora has no choice but to turn to Patch. And what she sees through his eyes, by touching his no touch zone on his back, will shock her to the very core!

Hush, Hush should have a lot to recommend about it. I will begin to say that Becca’s writing is commendable, but the way she has set things are so disjointed and stilted. I did like Nora in the beginning but then she ventured into the too stupid to live zone. The way she and Vee acted in regards to Patch was too immature and eye rolling. Why would you be so interested in Patch who comes across as a verbally abusive individual who makes you frightened for your life? Nora is never really attracted to Patch because the majority of the time she lives in fear of him. At one point she is in the library underground parking garage and plays catch me if you can around a car with Patch because she doesn’t want him to come near her. She thinks he is possibly the crazy ski mask man, the one who beat up a girl who was mean to her and every time she is with him, she has a sense of impending doom. At no point do we see Nora giving any real reason why she would be so interested in Patch. There is nothing redeemable about him in the least. Want to hear a big cliché? Nora is on a bus and gets off a stop where the bus driver says it’s not safe. Nora shrugs it off and actually walks down a dark, dank alley! Good grief.

As for Patch he is a manipulative jerk. I can’t help but bring up the comparison with him and Edward.

***This is a spoiler, so beware!**

I’ve read the countless discussions in regards to Meyer’s Edward, where he is a stalker and a murderer. The thing with Edward and his desire with Bella is that his need to kill her is more instinct and a deep hunger because Bella is his food, if you think about it. Edward grapples with this nature and overcomes his need. With Patch, his need to kill Nora is not because of an elemental need or hunger, but simply a means to an end, a reward he will receive. Patch has a way to reach his ultimate goal if he gets rid of Nora. There is no reason for him to hold back and not kill her that I can think of because there is nothing wonderful to recommend about Nora.

Hush, Hush is a rehash of Twilight plain and simple. Examples such as:

- Nora and Patch being partners in Bio class.
- Patch being dark, mysterious and dangerous, yet Nora can’t stay way.
- Nora lists attributes in regards to Patch much like Bella did with Edward, where she comes to these conclusions what Patch is.
- Nora is placed time and again in danger because of her own stupidity and her interactions and constant obsessing over Patch.

Need I go on?

Becca Fitzpatrick has written the complete opposite of what a healthy teenage romance should be. Patch is the perfect example of what an abusive near psycho boyfriend would be and Nora the weak, lost girl who thinks she is strong but isn’t. If I had to recommend a book to a young girl looking for a bad boy who is redeemed by love, Hush, Hush would never be mentioned.

I wish there was one positive thing I could say about Hush, Hush. I simply can’t. From the unbelievable actions of Nora and Vee to the near villain like tendencies of Patch, to the too many comparisons to count to Meyer’s Twilight, Hush, Hush belongs more as the musing of a fan fiction writer than a published novel that has no place in being read by impressionable young teens or the older audience who should know better to enjoy something like this.