Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

In Hush Hush, Becca Fitzpatrick begins her book in the past, when a boy falls out of the sky. He meets up with a young man and then calls the young man a descendant of a fallen angel. Then he forces the young man to enter an oath with him. From here Fitzpatrick moves to present day, to an anemic girl named Nora. She and her best friend, Vee, seem inseparable, but when her coach randomly chooses to change his seating arrangement, Nora finds herself paired with a dangerous, rebellious, but silent, exchange student, Patch. When Patch enters Nora's life, there are different events that scare her, but later she can no longer find evidence for. For example when driving to her house during the night, her car is hit by a person, dressed in all black and wearing a ski mask, who later tries to rip of the door almost successfully, but later when she looks for any damage, there is not a scratch on the car. Then she is introduced to Elliot and his ever ailing friend, Jules. At first she is interested in Elliot, but she finds that something about him causes her to feel uncomfortable.

Fitzpatrick creates a great stage of suspicion, making you question who is after her, Patch? Elliot? her mind? After multiple attacks, some of Nora's actions seem slightly unbelievable for a girl who has someone after her. She makes some naive choices that puts her directly in line for her attacker to get to her. One time, when she sees someone who looks vaguely like the masked man, following her and Vee, Vee offers to dress like her and walk out of the store. And instead of protecting her friend from the dangerous entity, Nora lets Vee travel outside and in turn be attacked. There were some events that do not make sense. It is a suspenseful story that is good, but has its flaws.

Spoiler (Though it does not give away all the true details of the ending):
In the end, when explaining who is actually after Nora, it becomes slightly confusing. Fitzpatrick introduces many different possible antagonists and than in some ways each character has their flaws but a reason for their actions. When Fitzpatrick, chooses to explain who is the evil character, it is slightly surprising.

The Stranger by Albert Camus

In Albert Camus's novel, The Stranger, he writes about a man named Meursault. This novel is sometimes difficult to follow because in some ways, Camus makes Meursault seem like he is not entirely in the novel. Meursault does not have any quotation marks that mark his statements during most of the book. He also does not make any major choices for himself and tends to follow anyone's suggestion. In the beginning of the novel, Meursault's mother died and Meursault was traveling to see her. It is odd how Meursault showed no interest at his mother's funeral. When people ask any personal questions about how old she is, Meursault would give a very vague answer of older, or about sixty. Not only does he know how old his mother is, he gave no interest in seeing his mother's body before the burial, even though his reasons for not seeing her was not because he was overemotional. Camus created a picture of a man who accepted his environment for his life and it is very facinating to read.

There are multiple times where Meursault is presented with a choice and he chooses to let others make them for him. For example, while he is dating Marie, she asks him if he would ever ask her to marry him, and he answers that he would do whatever would make her happy. In that case was marrying her, but whenever she asks him if he loves her, he answers with a confident no. Another time while talking with his flat mate, Raymond, Meursault is asked what Raymond should do with his 'unfaithful' mistress. Raymond believed that he should teacher her a lesson by beating her up and Meursault does nothing to stop the abuse, but he actually chooses to agree that Raymond was doing the right thing and even helps write a letter for Raymond. Meursault's inability to make decisions for himself becomes irritating as the book moves forward, because other than the interactions that Meursault makes with a few people, it seems like he is not even in the novel. The Stranger is a very good book, but it has times where it is hard to follow at moments.

Spoiler:
Albert Camus choses to bring in the main problem of the novel at the middle of the book when Meursault murders a man when he suspects that the man wants to kill him. Camus does not even specify what the man was holding, all Camus describes is the shining light that blinded Meursault. Because of this murder, Meursault is put into jail and on trial. Even though he is in jail he never becomes unemotionally unstable, but he does have a hard time paying attention and he tends to have fantasies in the important times of the trial. The only time he reacts to something is when the priest comes to Meursault when he is about to die. As the priest said he was the only one to never confess to God in the end his life.

Night Life by Caitlin Kittredge

This novel is about Luna, a lone werewolf, who lives in a city named Nocturne City. She is one of the best detectives on the police force, where she mainly investigates murder cases. Although this novel is written about a serial killer, Kittredge chose to add dark humor that lightens the novel's seriousness and makes you laugh out loud. When Kittredge describes the horrors of the first murder victim, she is able to make you envision the victim with her guts all around her and her index finger removed. She also makes her main character, Luna, feel human (or in Luna's case, werewolf) because instead of a two dimensional hardened character, Kittredge does a good job creating Luna to be a person you can relate to and feel the hurt that she feels when she goes to each murder scene or when she has to relive the first night she was changed into a werewolf. Not only does Kittredge introduce a good protagonist, she also gives Luna a cousin, named Sunny, who is the exact opposite of Luna in character. She is more of an ironic character, because even though she wears light colors and girly clothes, she can be a very strict person. Although she is nearly the same age as Luna, she seems to play as Luna's mother, or protector. Then there is Dimitri, who is the male werewolf, who Luna originally believes to have killed the women, but she quickly finds out that he is innocent. Luna befriends Dimitri and he joins in on Luna's hunt for the killer. At her work, she has many people who do not believe her to be a great detective, because of this animosity, Luna is first suspended than later fired.
In Night Life, there are some gaps in the writer's style that makes it difficult to understand what is happening at some points of the novel. There is also some confusion that can be made from the numerous number of characters that Kittredge in her novel. After a couple chapters, it can get confusing about who she is talking about. There were a couple times that I had to look back and figure out where I had read about the character previously in the novel. Also, Kittredge uses 'Hex' to mean a curse word in this world, at the beginning it is an awkward saying that is somewhat just thrown out there. By the end though it is understood as the substituted curse.
I will not actually say anything that will give away the end of the novel, but ...Kittredge throws in a unexpected twist and then resolves it in a different way. In all, the novel was good. It has its negitives, but it is an overall fun novel.

Introduction

For this blog, my goal for the next six months is to blog about each book that I read.