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.

[Synopsis]

Sophomore Nora Grey has confused feelings towards her infuriating new Biology lab partner Patch Cipriano. He's comes out as this obnoxious, egotistic boy who might've look like he got held a few years back.

That's when her life changed. She finds herself in very dangerous situations when she's around Patch which only leads her to be suspicious of him but of course, her curiosity (and biology assignment) got the best of her and she ends up stalking him. She then finally finds out about his secret about being a fallen angel. With the big secret thrown out there, and they find each other getting closer and closer until they realize that they have feelings for each other. Then comes the kicker.

Patch had set his eyes on Nora right from the beginning because he actually wants to sacrifice her so that he can finally have a human body.

Why is Nora so damn unbelievably lucky or unlucky, you may ask?

That's because she's the descendant Patch's nephilim vassal. According to the mythical Book of Enoch, if a fallen angel wishes to become human, he must sacrifice a female descendant of his nephilim vassal. And Patch has tracked down his and finally found Nora.

Chauncey Langeais, Patch's vassal, have other things in mind. He realizes that Patch has grown to have feelings for Nora and uses her to hurt him, completely unaware that she is his descendant.

Nora then sacrifices herself so that Chauncey will die and Patch will finally have his human body. But then she wakes up and realizes that Patch rejected her sacrifice and saved her turning him into a guardian angel instead.

The rest of the series is about how Patch (real name Jev) and Nora struggle with their doomed love life, getting around obstacles here and there to prove to everyone that despite their differences they can be together.

[End of Spoiler]

My main problem in the series is probably Nora. I simply cannot stand this character and I don't know if she was written that way because most of the time, I find myself empathizing to female characters, but I am just annoyed at her. She comes out nice, innocent, ignorant but truthfully she's just gullible, complete pushover, stubborn, jealous to the extreme that she won't listen to anybody else's explanation, judgmental and selfish. Every time she does something stupid whether it be jealous of Patch's past affairs or doing things on her own just for the sake of peace of mind without any regard to the concern of the people around her, I roll my eyes to the point of my eyes staying that way.

So since she's the heroine, she just totally ruined the entire series for me. And why oh why did Fitzpatrick kill the only character I liked in the entire series? It's like these was made to antagonize me. Seriously.

The setting overall was all to too convenient for our main characters, it seemed a little too rushed. The writing style was quite alright since I've read worse. I finished the entire series in 1 week and I even have work in between.

So I guess it's safe to say that I did not enjoy it.