Author: Becca Fitzpatrick
Published: October 2009
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing
Series: Hush Hush #1
391 pages (hardcover)
A lot of people are raving about this book and giving it great reviews. On the flip side, a lot of people are also giving it bad reviews and calling it a total Twilight rip-off. I was curious as to which camp I would fall into, and how big of a rip-off this book could be, so I picked it up when I saw it available at the library. Now that I’ve finished reading it, I can conclude that 1) I side with the readers who feel this book is a big disappointment and 2) it is so, so incredibly obvious that it’s a Twilight rip-off, or at least trying to ride on Twilight’s high. The list of similarities is uncannily long, but I won’t list them all here in this post.
Basically, if you know anything about Twilight, you already know the story behind Hush Hush, just replace vampires with fallen angels. Nora Grey meets mysterious new student Patch in her biology class and is forcefully assigned to be his partner for a biology project. Patch is ridiculously good looking, but has a hard, icy personality. They don’t get along very well and Nora decides she doesn’t like Patch, yet mysteriously feels attracted to him anyway. The more Nora tries to stay away from Patch, the more intrigued she is by him. Meanwhile, at the same time, Nora feels she is being stalked by a man in a black ski mask and believing it may be Patch, she starts trying to dig into his past, but comes up empty handed each time. Only when she sees the scars on Patch’s back, she Googles ‘fallen angels’ and realizes that Patch must be one, and possibly trying to use Nora as a sacrifice so that he may obtain a human body.
What irked me was Patch and Nora’s relationship. Even if I forget the whole idea of it being the same situation as Bella and Edward (Edward wants to kill and drink Bella’s blood for his own benefit; Patch wants to kill and sacrifice Nora for his own benefit), it’s just a really shallow and nonsensical relationship built on intimidation. I did not understand how or why Nora would start falling in love with Patch and vice versa. She is frightened of him and seems to dislike him and after standing a little too close to Patch, she suddenly decides she secretly is lusting after him. It’s so incredibly hyporcritical; there’s several points in the story where Nora believes Patch is a real danger to her life, and at the exact same time, she also believes Patch would never harm her. I don’t understand this at all. She switches back and forth on her stance on Patch every other page, it would seem. Not to mention that it’s so disturbing that her supposed love for him is based on fear; she finds him dangerous and that is attractive to her so she continues to hang around him despite believing he has the power to kill her. So unsettling. Nora is an incredibly weak minded and shallow girl.
Patch is worse, he gives no hints that he likes Nora at all, and suddenly it is revealed near the end that he is in love with her; no explanation why he would choose her. I mean, Nora doesn’t exactly have a stellar personality or drop dead gorgeous looks from what I can tell. I can see no reason why a fallen angel would find her irresistibly alluring. I don’t find him to be a likable character at all. Also, the author’s repeated use of the word ‘smiling’ when describing Patch got on my nerves. He was smiling like he knew a secret. His eyes smiled. I could feel him smiling. You get the idea.
While eerily similar to Twilight’s, I didn’t think the plot was unbearable. The overall plot actually is okay (hence my pity half star below …). What I found silly was the author’s portrayal of teenagers and high school. It’s just so out of touch with what real teenagers or real teachers would behave like. Anyway, it’s pretty obvious that I didn’t really like this book, but I admit I’m kind of curious about the sequel because I want to see if it’s going to continue shadowing Twilight’s plot (and like I said, plot-wise, it isn’t that terrible, it’s really the characters that drag this book down). As far as recommendations go, I don’t recommend reading Hush Hush.
My Rating: 1.5/5
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