Hush Hush Series

Hush Hush Series by Becca Fitzpatrick

I've been so into the Young Adult (YA) genre lately that most of my to-read list consists of them, but I've said to myself that I am not picking up another vampire series, thus my current fixation on the Nephilim.

The first time I have encountered this name, this term was when I read Danielle Trussoni's "Angelology" (review in the works), and well since it's new (for me), even if the storyline did get to be a bit dragging somewhere in the middle, it got me hooked into the world of fallen angels.

The "Hush Hush Series" is the last series I've read from this sub-genre and I don't know if it's because of that that I didn't like the story or maybe it just didn't really cut it for me, or as I may have read somewhere, it's just plain bad.

The story starts with our heroine, Nora Grey. She's your typical protagonist, seemingly normal, oblivious to her looks, might not be totally pretty but the fact that she thinks she's average is what draws men to her, gets dragged into an unknown world, falls in love with the worst possible guy ever and all because he looks at her funny (and I mean that in every sense possible).

In comes love interest Patch Cipriano. I gotta hand it to Becca Fitzpatrick for giving her male protagonist a not so normal name and could be downright absurd but then again Patch is his nickname, so I guess its acceptable. As for Patch, well I guess I could also compare him to other love interests like that of Stephenie Meyer's Edward Cullen. He keeps giving our girl mixed signals like I-am-so-drawn-to-you-but-you-totally-have-to-stay-away-from-me-but-then-again-just-be-with-me-but-I'm-super-dangerous kind of thing.

[Spoiler ahead]

First of all, out of all the book covers, the only one that made sense to me was the first one, which is Patch being attacked by some invisible force which could possibly be the time his wings got ripped out by the archangels. The only book in the series where Patch has his wings is in book 2 "Crescendo" and his not even on the cover.

That isn't even what I imagined Patch would look like, why is his chest always out? Ugh it seems too gay.

Background check. Fallen angels are those angels that are banished to the earth for crimes they have committed against heaven. They have their wings ripped out by the Archangels. Meanwhile the Nephilim are the offspring of fallen angels and humans.

One of the punishment of the fallen angels is that they can't feel anything physically; in order for them to feel anything, they need to possess another body. Ideally, the body of a purebred nephilim, born from one fallen angel parent and one human parent, technically they are immortal so that makes them stronger than humans.

Now, for these fallen angels to possess a nephilim body, the nephilim have to swear an oath of fealty. Most of the time, these fallen angels use force to get the nephilim to swear the oath. Then they become the angel's vassal and once they've sworn in, that's when they stop aging.

The fallen angels can only possess their nephilim vassal, every year during the Jewish month of Cheshvan, and they get to abuse their possessed bodies to their hearts contents for the remainder of that season without any complaint from their vassal.

There begins the feud between Fallen Angels and Nephilims.

Fifty Shades…

of mediocrity. I may seem like a total pervert for reading this book, but come on, who doesn’t get curious when it says “Erotic novel” on the back. Anyway, I Googled this before I read it and I kinda wished I hadn’t.

The similarities between this and Twilight became all too obvious. No offense to E.L. James, but I don’t know how this got published (then again it might have something to do with the word “erotic”).

The first book “Fifty Shades of Grey” as you can read on Wikipedia, is an erotic novel by British author E.L. James, which was originally a fanfiction to the Twilight saga.

You can read traces of Twilight anywhere on there, from the characters to the dialogues, I mean seriously this was like a total rip-off. Its kinda like appealing itself to the same Twilight audience who have consequently grown up.

This tells the story of Anastasia “Ana” Steele, a bookish, sort of a loner, with an inferiority complex, fresh grad student who has caught this eye of the mysterious, drop-dead gorgeous, unbelievably talented, incredibly seemingly cold  and ridiculously rich Christian Grey.

[Spolier Alert!]

Ana immediately falls for Christian. Christian obviously is interested in her, but holds back, drops the line “I’m not the man for you." (which is totally Edward-ish). Both ends up giving in. She finds out deep dark secret (well not most of it) ignores all signs and warnings. Then she ends up leaving him (which probably is the only thing that differs from Twilight, that the fact that the girl left the guy).

I’m not a writer, obviously, but I do read a lot of books and this just doesn’t cut it. It appeared to me like she had a very limited vocabulary, the scenes may be exciting enough but when you use the same words to describe it, makes it all boring in the end. By the time I was reading the second book, the sex scenes (which were massively abundant, duh? erotic) have become too tiring and it just makes me want to skip it because I already know what the character feels like or what she’s thinking because the author keeps using the same words over and over again. That kinda irritated me, by the third book, I was trying my best to keep reading just so I could finish it, but it was torture.

I didn’t buy her style in narrating this story, I mean sure, use the genre to its full extent and make them have sex at every turn but come on, if your gonna do just that, try and make it interesting (sure, we get a glimpse into the world of BDSM) but I don’t know, I guess for me, it call down to her writing technique and it failed.

Seriously, I’m a girl, supposedly I should be empathizing the protagonist but the only time I got excited was when there was suspense, but then it goes back to the sex and honestly speaking, the sex ruined it all. How freaking ironic is that.

That said, I have no idea how this gets to be adapted (fine, it’s the “erotic” word again) into a movie. I’m like ‘What?’ It just doesn’t make sense at all. But since we’re into the movie might as well give thoughts.

I agree with the majority, when I was reading this, I envisioned Ian Somerholder as Christian Grey. He has the smoldering gaze that melts you even if its just a picture, Somerholder’s stare is enough to sell him as the enigmatic Christian Grey, but as for Ana Steele, I have no idea. I guess I’ll have to look through the possibilities.

Hunger Games Trilogy : Hunger Games

I know this book has been out for over a year now, but I never did like it when people tell me to do something and people kept telling me to read this.

Then Josh Hutcherson happened. I love Josh Hutcherson, not an outstanding actor but he has been pretty fun to watch since I remember him as the boy who cried “Rosamary!!!” in “Little Manhattan” That was absolutely adorable.

Anyway, not gonna go into the movie since that’s not until early next year. But Hutcherson did get me reading it.

I enjoyed the first book, thoroughly. I honestly could not put it down. Maybe because a bulk of the book was about the games itself which is filled with suspense and conflict.

The story is told from Katniss Everdeen’s POV, a girl driven by hunger  and poverty in general, from an apocalyptic future. Set in what will be North America, now called Panem. I kinda liked how the made the whole story seem like a wheel in motion, a domino effect of the lived of people. They made it seem like it could’ve happened to anyone but that task was specifically for her.

Katniss Everdeen, like all other female protagonist, she also has internal conflicts. To put it simply she’s a girl who grew up taking care of her family from a very young age. Also, like all other adolescent kid, she struggles from other problems, likes boys and such, other than their run-of-the-mill everyday problem which is hunger.

Peeta Mellark is my favorite character, but that would seem biased since I’ve expressed my fondness for Josh Hutcherson who will be playing Peeta in the film. But besides that I like Peeta because his character is lighter than the rest. He was the only who made me laugh in the series.

Gale Hawthorne could be my least favorite since in the first book, he didn’t do much. I don’t know how they’ll make his character more exciting in the movie but I can’t take him seriously. He felt more like a distraction than a conflict.

So if I would rate Hunger Games book 1, I’d give it 4 stars. It was pretty good. I guess the only real thing I disliked about it was the romance bit. Never really liked love stories plus there was a whole bunch of unneeded kissing scenes there. Still good though if I cut all those mushy parts. LOL