Ah, gaining a stalker named Patch. How romantic. Where's Captain Hook or Peg Leg Pete to lurk around instead of Patch the not-pirate.

Nora's life is relatively normal, until one day she's made aware of Patch. Patch spends the entire book being an utter twat, and at the end of it we get this grand reveal.

I don't know why they always seem to take 75% of the book to do the grand reveal that he is a fallen angel. This is a huge problem I have with these books. If you're going to Angel route reveal it within the first book and upfront and have it be the plot point, not just a later thing that we fall into in the next book, and the next book. There's a problem with these Angel quartets and onward, and it's that they have so many books that they literally make their main plot line something that stars in the second, or the third book. Never the first.

My other issue is I don't know why fallen angels always have to have this horrible stalker tendency while also being obviously of God. Did God decide to make angels into creepy stalkers or what? Why is every angel either a stalker or an abusive person or a narcissist in these romances? Patch regularly taunts and torments Nora, and is a complete and utter asshole to her. I'm supposed to find this endearing but instead I find him to be a creepy stalker that needs to be stopped.

Patches sexually harassing, stalking, abusive, and utterly exploiting every drop of kindness out of nora, and I'm supposed to feel something for him other than wanting to backhand him into a wall.

He also regularly pushes off her lip gloss with a finger and tells her she looks better without it on...

I hate him.

I have no idea how the author managed to write a predatory character that's supposed to be the love interest, but patches of predator and every scene makes me think of him as a creep lurking, waiting to strike.

And suddenly, at the very end of the book, we get massive lore dump! Suddenly this book now tells us it's not one book but many books, which I already knew but I groan because the lore feels so painful to read. Basically all of the fallen angels are male, which is undone in the next books. The rest of it is so stupid I actually don't feel like putting it here, it sounds bad, I literally try to write it out and then read it and felt like I was having a stroke. Essentially the best summary I can give, is: sacrifice a female of their bloodline in order to kill their ancestors.

Oh, and Patch was sent to kill Nora. Plot twist? Not for me because he's being an utter creep, but obviously this is meant to be a twist.

0.5 stars.

This is awful. ( )

Hush Hush is a novel I have NEVER had any desire to read, I see it on the shelf or on amazon and I'm like....yeee-nah. Mostly the reason for this is because it is put along side books such as Fallen, Torment and sometimes Twilight....all of which (to be polite with my words...) suck.

So why did I pick it up?....well just before work on Tuesday I popped into the library to find the teen section crammed with old men at computers clearly learning where the power button is, and since I couldn't get past I grabbed this out of the bad bunch that I could see. Eg Fallen, Torment, Wicked Lovely etc.

Hush Hush is a relatively quick paced start to a 4 book series? (not sure) pretty much it introduces the typical girl being flawless and perfect (yawn) and the not as pretty but still quite attractive BFF. Together they are inseparable until (surprise surprise) boys happen to join this terribly predictable story. Patch is a transfer student who is scary and is put to work with Nora (our beautiful heroine) and eventually chemistry happens.
In general this story is the typical teen fantasy novel publishers are trying to cram down our already choking throats.

So why the 4 star review among all this negativity?


Well I liked how tight the book was written, it never introduce your typical stereotype friends and it didn't try force romance down in my guts either. In fact aside from the regular mention of how Patch was a bad kind of attraction that Nora wanted to avoid, nothing between them really happens that makes me want to throw the book down in a raging 'I hate the teenage crap that's written today' mood.

The story being about angels was a bit of a slope for me, I thought maybe it would seem to false in a real world story but Miss Fitzpatrick done well to keep the realism in the characters, also making them into creatures not to be taken lightly.

The story was more about finding a suspect behind a ski mask that terrorizes Nora more than it was about angels, and so it hasn't really revealed a whole lot about the fallen and its avenging angels etc.

Aside from these things
1. the name Patch kept making me think of the character as some cute little puppy dog (sigh)
2. the typical beauty queen protagonist.
3. the pretty obvious plot and who was doing what.

I was totally hooked, and I will be hunting the second one down soon!
( )

Nope, not going to keep reading this.

This was actually worse than Twilight.

I'm not sure if it is because I am no longer a 12 year old girl but I found everything about this book (plot, writing, characters) to be 'totally LAME'. ( )

There's only one book I've read this year that I hated more than this book: Melissa De La Cruz's Blue Bloods. Both were audio books for my commute, which is the only reason either got finished.
Our hero, Patch, must have been picked up on clearance from Bad Boys R Us; our heroine, Nora, was likely plucked out of Stephenie Meyers' waste paper basket of discarded Bella Swan prototypes, tossed out for being too weak and unlikable. And really, there is nothing to like about either of these characters, except for their appearances. They're very attractive; guess they belong together.
Nora lets Patch control her from the beginning, verbally refusing his advances, only to do whatever he says anyway. She lies to everyone in her life. But it's OK, because the author always gives us her justification for lying right before she does it. The only time she doesn't end up going along with Patch's plans is when an emergency prevents her from doing so.
Why fallen angel Patch, who has several hundreds of years on Nora, has fallen in love with her, is a mystery. Maybe it's her ability to constantly state the obvious, or the fact that she's afraid of him (yet strangely drawn to him) throughout the book. Hey, he lost his wings over someone he didn't even know, so he might not be the brightest bulb anyway.
People can read what they want, but I know if kids at the library ask me about this book, I will steer them toward worthier young adult books. Kimberly Derting's The Body Finder comes to mind, along with any number of paranormal romance/adventures with much stronger protagonists: The Vampire Academy series (even though the last book was a disappointment), Morganville Vampires, Wicked Lovely (see previous note about Vampire Academy), Paranormalcy, Anna Dressed in Blood, Mortal Instruments..well, you get the
picture. ( )