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. 

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Enclave [ Razorland #1 ] by Ann Aguirre

Title: Enclave
Series: Razorland
Author: Ann Aguirre
Publication Date: April 12th, 2011
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
ISBN: 0312650086 
Rating: 2 stars


[NOTE: There are mentions of rape in this review, due to the way it was handled being insanely problematic and just wrong. However, the book does not show graphic rape, and just alludes to the fact that it was a possibility for Deuce, and was in Tegan’s backstory.]


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Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols

Title: Going Too Far
Author: Jennifer Echols
Publication Date: March 17th, 2009
Publisher: Pocket Books
ISBN: 1416571736 
Rating: 2 stars

I read Going Too Far with complete ambivalence. I cannot say that there were a plethora of offensive, glaring faults, but I did not enjoy the story, and upon finishing, I neither had the desire to think further on what I had read, nor was I excited to review it. As such, I read this at least a week ago, and have been putting off the review until now. It might be clear by now that romance is not my preferred genre, and I do not always pay close attention to the synopsis when going into a book, especially if it has come highly recommended. This is what happened with Going Too Far – it’s a straight-forward romance, and romances rarely leave me anything other than bored.

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Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott [ TW: RAPE ]

Title: Living Dead Girl
Author: Elizabeth Scott
Publication Date: September 2nd, 2008
Publisher: Simon Pulse
ISBN: 1416960597 
Rating: 2 stars

I’m settling on 2 stars for this book, although I’ve been unsure of how to go about rating it. It had an effect on me, which makes me want to get it three stars off the bat, but then there’s the problem that I didn’t actually like it all that much, which made me consider giving it a lower score. So I’m going for the middle, but even that doesn’t satisfy me.


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The Mockingbirds [ The Mockingbirds #1 ] by Daisy Whitney [ TW: rape ]

Title: The Mockingbirds
Series: The Mockingbirds
Author: Daisy Whitney
Publication Date: November 2nd, 2010
Publisher: Little Brown
ISBN: 0316090530
Rating: 2 stars

The Mockingbirds was intended to be a quick read while I was sitting in Starbucks one day with a craving for some high school drama. I had seen mixed reviews for the book, so I went into it not expecting a whole lot. Unfortunately, my expectations were met.

Our protagonist is Alex, a teenage girl at a boarding school that demands excellence. After a night partying and drinking, she is raped by another student – Carter. The first part of the book primarily deals with the question of whether she was raped or not, as she cannot recall the details, and is, at first, unsure of if she just made a mistake or if Carter took advantage of her. Eventually she decides that, yes, it was rape, as she was in no state to consent, and so she calls on the Mockingbirds, a sort of secret society at Themis Academy that try and punish other students.

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