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hiddenvaluess's review against another edition
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
it’s a good read, quick enough to capture your attention and give you a couple to fall in love with. patch is a very lovable male interest! happily reread after many years and i enjoyed it just as much.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Stalking, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Body shaming and Suicide attempt
skillyillian's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
jesus h christ this book had me shaking my head the entire time I read it. Spoilers ahead 🤦🏻♀️
WHY are we letting minors into an "arcade" with poker tables, cigar smoking, and a full BAR???? Who is going in there to bet fancy jeeps and condos?!? That's the least of the logic problems here. It's like grown-ups just don't exist in this story hardly at all. A bartender lets Nora actually sit at the bar and talk to her after calling her out for being underage. Why? That's how you lose your licensing and your job, bud. There's a bunch more instances where it makes ZERO sense for a teenager to be where she is or doing what she's doing but it just happens anyway bc why not 🤷🏻♀️
This entire story could've been moved ahead by six or seven years with Nora in college and it would've solved half the logic problems here and made Patch a thousand times LESS creepy. I don't mind a fantasy genre age gap, I read Sarah j Maas ffs but patch has hypothetically been around since ADAM AND EVE, but falls in love with a 16/17 year old?????? WHY????? put her in college. They can still be lab partners and she can still be friends with vee and whatever else but for fucks sake she didn't need to be an actual CHILD with someone who's been around SINCE THE CREATION OF MANKIND. half the lore here didn't make sense. The author talked about stuff from the bible that she treated as fact but was very easily disproved with literally a single Google search. I broke her lore in less than three minutes.
The internalized misogyny runs rampant here. Nora's arch nemesis of sorts is, naturally, the cheerleader who "wears half a bottle of foundation" and when she's first introduced it's bc she's mockingly offering for Nora's best friend Vee to model bikinis at her mom's JCP bc she can't find enough plus size lingerie models. WHY ARE YOU HIRING MINORS TO MODEL LINGERIE AND BIKINIS, MA'AM?????? USE A FUCKING MANNEQUIN. gross gross gross. Anyway Marcie (the nemesis) uses Vee's size to bully her, and they go back and forth being catty about weight and size and Nora or Vee tells Marcie she has chocolate ex-lax stuck in her teeth. I cringed viscerally. holy shit oh my god what the hell????? jfc dude can we please move past this trope already??? It's giving "pick me", it's giving "I'm not like the other girls", it's giving "i'm the real victim here" and it's so tired. Stop acting like this shit is normal and okay, no one needs to think talking to each other like this is how it's meant to be.
Absolutely NOTHING of note happens for the first probably 85-90% of this book. You could cut out almost everything from the first probably 26 chapters and still be more or less caught up when the climax of the book hits. I finished this to see if it would get any better and it did not. The final fight made zero sense, stuff that was revealed made me even MORE grossed out with Patch than I was before, and all of the rules on angel powers and shit that had been set up were immediately chucked out the window. Like, at the speed of light, gone. Fallen angels can't possess anyone except for the one time they can, and it's not that time, but Patch manages to do it anyway, just in time to stop Jules from shooting her. How convenient ✨
Anyway this just wasn't it. Patch grooms a minor and disrespects any actual boundaries she tries to set and it was all extremely romanticized in the name of "you said not to but I'm doing it anyway because I know you want it and just won't say it" and that's gross. Vee is an EXTREMELY bad friend and ignored Nora every time she needed help, including when Nora said Elliot attacked her on her front porch and then Vee was at a party with him 12 hours later and trying to get Nora to join them. Yikes. And the first time Nora goes out for the night Vee looks her over and says something like "boys like girls who actually look like girls" like.... What the fuck??? Hello??? Show me where Nora asked. Show me.
TL;DR: There are gaping flaws in the logic throughout the whole book. Problematic behavior is romanticized throughout. This book is meant for younger audiences and a lot of icky shit is justified that impressionable people just don't need to be reading about. It's fine to let men disrespect you and groom you because they're hot and moody, and if your best friend is a dickhead it's just tough love, right? Right?
As my bestie said, "it's giving 2008 self insert fanfic" and they were RIGHT.
Good hell idk how there are three more books after this. I can't even voice all of my frustration without just explaining the whole book. This review is so long and that's after I chopped a bunch of it out. Thank god I didn't read these in high school bc it would've wrecked me almost as bad as twilight did. Never again
WHY are we letting minors into an "arcade" with poker tables, cigar smoking, and a full BAR???? Who is going in there to bet fancy jeeps and condos?!? That's the least of the logic problems here. It's like grown-ups just don't exist in this story hardly at all. A bartender lets Nora actually sit at the bar and talk to her after calling her out for being underage. Why? That's how you lose your licensing and your job, bud. There's a bunch more instances where it makes ZERO sense for a teenager to be where she is or doing what she's doing but it just happens anyway bc why not 🤷🏻♀️
This entire story could've been moved ahead by six or seven years with Nora in college and it would've solved half the logic problems here and made Patch a thousand times LESS creepy. I don't mind a fantasy genre age gap, I read Sarah j Maas ffs but patch has hypothetically been around since ADAM AND EVE, but falls in love with a 16/17 year old?????? WHY????? put her in college. They can still be lab partners and she can still be friends with vee and whatever else but for fucks sake she didn't need to be an actual CHILD with someone who's been around SINCE THE CREATION OF MANKIND. half the lore here didn't make sense. The author talked about stuff from the bible that she treated as fact but was very easily disproved with literally a single Google search. I broke her lore in less than three minutes.
The internalized misogyny runs rampant here. Nora's arch nemesis of sorts is, naturally, the cheerleader who "wears half a bottle of foundation" and when she's first introduced it's bc she's mockingly offering for Nora's best friend Vee to model bikinis at her mom's JCP bc she can't find enough plus size lingerie models. WHY ARE YOU HIRING MINORS TO MODEL LINGERIE AND BIKINIS, MA'AM?????? USE A FUCKING MANNEQUIN. gross gross gross. Anyway Marcie (the nemesis) uses Vee's size to bully her, and they go back and forth being catty about weight and size and Nora or Vee tells Marcie she has chocolate ex-lax stuck in her teeth. I cringed viscerally. holy shit oh my god what the hell????? jfc dude can we please move past this trope already??? It's giving "pick me", it's giving "I'm not like the other girls", it's giving "i'm the real victim here" and it's so tired. Stop acting like this shit is normal and okay, no one needs to think talking to each other like this is how it's meant to be.
Absolutely NOTHING of note happens for the first probably 85-90% of this book. You could cut out almost everything from the first probably 26 chapters and still be more or less caught up when the climax of the book hits. I finished this to see if it would get any better and it did not. The final fight made zero sense, stuff that was revealed made me even MORE grossed out with Patch than I was before, and all of the rules on angel powers and shit that had been set up were immediately chucked out the window. Like, at the speed of light, gone. Fallen angels can't possess anyone except for the one time they can, and it's not that time, but Patch manages to do it anyway, just in time to stop Jules from shooting her. How convenient ✨
Anyway this just wasn't it. Patch grooms a minor and disrespects any actual boundaries she tries to set and it was all extremely romanticized in the name of "you said not to but I'm doing it anyway because I know you want it and just won't say it" and that's gross. Vee is an EXTREMELY bad friend and ignored Nora every time she needed help, including when Nora said Elliot attacked her on her front porch and then Vee was at a party with him 12 hours later and trying to get Nora to join them. Yikes. And the first time Nora goes out for the night Vee looks her over and says something like "boys like girls who actually look like girls" like.... What the fuck??? Hello??? Show me where Nora asked. Show me.
TL;DR: There are gaping flaws in the logic throughout the whole book. Problematic behavior is romanticized throughout. This book is meant for younger audiences and a lot of icky shit is justified that impressionable people just don't need to be reading about. It's fine to let men disrespect you and groom you because they're hot and moody, and if your best friend is a dickhead it's just tough love, right? Right?
As my bestie said, "it's giving 2008 self insert fanfic" and they were RIGHT.
Good hell idk how there are three more books after this. I can't even voice all of my frustration without just explaining the whole book. This review is so long and that's after I chopped a bunch of it out. Thank god I didn't read these in high school bc it would've wrecked me almost as bad as twilight did. Never again
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Suicide, Violence, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Bullying, Gun violence, Violence, and Stalking
Minor: Eating disorder
mercyiscurrentlyreading's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
2.0
Personally, this felt like a chore to read. Normally, I finish through with the book even when I don’t like it however, this was just not for me.
I feel as though this book isn’t for everyone, my friend loved but overall I felt like there was too much going on and a lot of jumping to conclusions from Nora. I felt like it was a desperate attempt for it to feel as though everything has been solved. I felt so confused for the 60% I read. I didn’t feel as though I was immersed into the world Becca created. I obviously wasn’t her target audience and I just didn’t really enjoy much outside of the Vee interactions and Patch really. I feel like a lot was going on and also it was barely moving at the same time. The prologue was utterly confusing even to where I read to.
I feel as though this book isn’t for everyone, my friend loved but overall I felt like there was too much going on and a lot of jumping to conclusions from Nora. I felt like it was a desperate attempt for it to feel as though everything has been solved. I felt so confused for the 60% I read. I didn’t feel as though I was immersed into the world Becca created. I obviously wasn’t her target audience and I just didn’t really enjoy much outside of the Vee interactions and Patch really. I feel like a lot was going on and also it was barely moving at the same time. The prologue was utterly confusing even to where I read to.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Death, Fatphobia, Physical abuse, Suicide, Stalking, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
leisha_sammaira's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Stalking, Suicide attempt, and Murder
Admired the commencement of the book. It starts off with a joke and it was a notably impressive yet cryptic book.