Truly, Madly, Deadly by Hannah Jayne

Title: Truly, Madly, Deadly
Author: Hannah Jayne
Publication Date: July 2nd, 2013
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
ISBN: 1402281218
Rating: 2 stars

After Sawyer’s football-playing boyfriend dies, she receives a note in her locker, suggesting that it wasn’t an accident. Someone may have discovered his abuse, which she kept hidden from the world. But as Sawyer attempts to remain a normal high school student, more people end up dead, and it seems to be that she has a vengeful stalker, snapping pictures of her from afar and killing those who harm her. 

I read this book in one setting over the course of a couple of hours. Not because I needed to know what was going to happen next, but because I kind of wanted to just get to the next book. It’s a shame, because I had heard many good things about this book, but I just didn’t like it at all. The mystery wasn’t compelling, the characters were one-dimensional, the romance was boring, and the villain was, quite frankly, insulting. With that said, the prose is one of the few things I didn’t have a problem with, so if my criticisms do not seem to be a big deal to you, I would say to give the novel a try. 

I feel like the plot wouldn’t have worked if the characters hadn’t been so mind-numbingly stupid. Sawyer rarely told people what was going on – for no discernable reason – and when she did, no one believed her. Even when they had absolutely no reason to doubt her. If you need to make your characters really dumb to make your story work, it’s probably not a very good story.

What I hated most, though, were the characters. Maggie is the mean popular girl who used to date Sawyer’s (now deceased) boyfriend. Predictably, Maggie has no personality outside of being “a bitch.” There is nothing I hate more than when an author decides to have undeveloped female characters with no more than one personality trait, all to prop up their ~superior~ main character. Also, Chloe, who I quite liked at first, being the scrappy trailer park girl, was the only notable girl character besides Maggie and Sawyer. And guess what? It turns out she’s evil.

And I guessed that only 80 pages in.

But! Not only is Chloe evil, she’s an evil lesbian, murdering people to prove her love for Sawyer! If your only gay character is evil, that’s a problem. If every female character besides your main character is evil, that’s a problem. Before I realized that Chloe was going to be the villain, I was hoping she would just be a lesbian. Sure, she had boyfriends, but I smelled that lesbian subtext a mile away.

The romance is also boring and cookie-cutter. We have a “unique” protagonist and a muscled, dull love interest. Seriously, is it just me, or do the majority of MCs in YA novels seem to be the same character? 

I really didn’t like this book, but I also have a nagging feeling that I’m going to forget most of it within a few days. I had to make this review quickly – even though I read the book today – because I was already unable to recall a few things. Overall, it just wasn’t for me.