Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

Good Reads Description:
For Nora Grey, romance was not part of the plan. She's never been particularly attracted to the boys at her school, no matter how much her best friend, Vee, pushes them at her...until Patch comes along.
With his easy smile and eyes that seem to see inside her, Nora is drawn to him against her better judgment, but after a series of terrifying encounters, Nora's not sure whom to trust. Patch seems to be everywhere she is, and to know more about her than her closest friends. She can't decide whether she should fall into his arms or run and hide. And when she tries to seek some answers, she finds herself near a truth that is far more unsettling than anything Patch makes her feel.
For Nora is right in the middle of an ancient battle between the immortal and those that have fallen - and when it comes to choosing sides, the wrong choice will cost her life.

**I feel like I should include a disclaimer for this post...just had my wisdom teeth out when writing this review...so this review has been written under the use of the lovely percocet and the just tad bit of pain. lol **
Thoughts...

Normally, I try to exclude any kind of spoilers in my reviews. However, that will NOT be the case with this review.  There are too many thoughts swimming around in my head and none of them will make sense if I do not delve into this twisted plot.

So before I spoil away, the bottom line is...this is a mediocre read.  It is not a must read, but the story line was intriguing enough to keep me reading.  If you reseach other ratings of this book, you will find that either people LOVE it or HATE it. However, I am kind of in the middle (which will be explained below). Beware though, this book caused me to ramble and shout! lol

**Spoilers**

Where to start?  There were so many things wrong with this book!  First of all, the thing that sticks out the most after reading this book, Vee is a HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE best friend. I could not stand her.  She never had Nora's best interest at heart and only thought about herself. The first time I thought Vee was a horrible friend was when she wouldn't drive Nora home because it was too foggy.  What? That's just dumb! Now I get it that Nora wouldn't have had that first strange experience if Vee had been with her, but how can you expect me to like this chick when she acts this way. She constantly teases Nora about her lack of experience and how she dresses.  Then Nora plainly states that she doesn't trust Elliot and does not want to go camping with him and Jules and Vee doesn't care. She tries to persuade her into going anyway. She always thinks about what she wants...no one else.

So we have covered Nora's shitty best friend, now lets discuss Patch.  Sometimes I think that his character was just unredeemable.  I knew all along that he was going to be the one that Nora falls for, but his character was made out to be so horrible in so many ways that I don't know that you can get past it.  He stalks her (Strike One). He is rude to her and then in a flip of a switch tries to kiss her, in other words bi-polar (Stike 2). He admits that he wants to kill her (Definitely Stike 3). Then he admits that he just needs to sacrifice her so he can be a human instead of a fallen agen (Stike 4). The list could go on.  I really wanted to like Patch, but I never felt like anything happened to redeem his character. I sure as hell wouldn't trust him.  Oh and lets not forget that he puts ideas in Nora's head to sometimes scare her. For example, he makes her think she is falling to her death while on a roller coaster ride. That is just unacceptable and crossing a line.  He decides he will just scare her instead of kill her? Hmm...

Then we have all the times that stuff just wouldn't go down that way in real life...like the biology class.  No way, would a biology class / sex-ed class happen like that.  Nora is pretty much harrassed in class by Patch and the teacher does nothing about it. He pretty much encourages the behavior. And the way Vee speaks so candidly during class about sex, just wouldn't happen either. And then, Vee calls in the fake bomb threat from a pay phone so Nora can look in the student records. First off, calling in a bomb threat would be a much bigger deal and the cops wouldn't just let someone get away with it like that. Second, the room to the students records would not just be open and the drawer to the actual filing cabinets would definitely not be unlocked. I could go on with this topic, but then my review would be ten thousand words long!

The last topic I will bring up...Nora just all of a sudden decided that she loved Patch.  It was a flip of a switch. She is constantly hot and cold throughout the book. Hating him one minute and getting into a compromising postion with him the next. But, all of a sudden she decides that she is in love with him...before he did anything to justify all of the horrible behavior throughout the book. I just didn't get it.

Patch did however, redeem himself in the very end by not accepting Nora's sacrifice.  So, everything worked out TOO perfectly by Nora getting to live even though she sacrificed herself by jumping from a very high ladder and Patch is no longer a fallen angel because he choose to save Nora's life rather than choose to be a human. Even better, Patch gets assigned to be Nora's guardian angel...I guess this is the set up to book two now...Confused? Yeah, me too.

Overall, there was something intriguing about this book that did make me finish it.  I think I just assumed that something major would happen that would redeem the characters so I kept plowing through.  After my rambling, I would probably rate this with 2 1/2 or 3 stars.  I did get sucked into the story as it was unique and suspenseful, but in the end I was left unsatisfied and confused...