Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick

This book was a pretty big let-down for me. I really enjoyed HUSH, HUSH with its suspense and spunky heroine, Nora Grey. I thought that I had finally found a series that broke away from authors trying to mimick TWIGHLIGHT'S version of "romance" by having a strong plot, in-depth characters, and a heroine who can hold her own - with or without a boyfriend. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

The book was "supposed" to be about Nephilim's (half human, half angels) gathering recruits to fight fallen angels. Of course, Nora is a Nephilim, and the danger is always lurking that a fallen angel wants to kill her to become human, but Patch is her guardian angel, which means that probably won't happen. That was SUPPOSED to be the plot. Instead, the author spent 327 pages chronicling Nora's angst about breaking up with Patch, and his going out with Marcie, her slutty arch-enemy. Fitzpatrick tried to create a double-love triangle by having Nora run into her childhood friend, Scott, and develop a romance, but the whole thing was weak and contrived. In fact, the whole novel was one big, awful romance novel depicting three weak and pathetic girls who strove for male attention. Some might argue that all of this angst is based in reality, and I admit that I knew one or two girls in high school like this, but I wouldn't call them the norm, and I wouldn't want them to be the norm. Nora even contemplates suicide at one point, which I thought was totally irresponsible of the author. We want females to be empowered, not constantly fed the idea that they can't function without a boyfriend. And, definitely not that their lives aren't worth living without one!

The novel finally focused on the REAL plot around page 357 but not before Fitzpatrick exhausted the whole "Can we trust Patch" thing. Honestly, that was beaten to death in Book One, it was simply annoying in Book Two and detracted from the plot. Also, the reader heard a lot about Rixon throughout the novel, but never even met him until she was 300 pages in. Then, all of a sudden, the whole plot revolved around him. The whole novel was like this. All of the characters were shallow and underdeveloped, and their functions throughout were disjointed.

I won't read Book Three. In fact, regardless of the overall ratings on Goodreads, most people (I'm referring to my friends) despised this novel, and were too nice to give it the rating it deserves. Every author deserves a "dud," and I hope that this is simply the case with this one. Like I said, I really loved HUSH, HUSH, so I know Fitzpatrick is talented. I just don't know why she sold out on this one.