About a week or two ago I bought a book called Underworld by Meg Cabot, since I knew I was supposed to be reading and reviewing a book that was the last in the same trilogy, from Netgalley.
Oh boy! I thought. What a pretty cover! I can't wait to start reading!
Except, guys, the cover looks like this:
And I didn't notice the big, fat The deadly sequel to ABANDON right underneath the author's name the multiple times I ogled over how shiny the blue print on the cover was.
You know those really stupid, annoying books where no matter HOW hard you look you cannot find out what number it is in a series (if you even know it's part of a series) because the jacket and interior designer screwed up somewhere along the thinking process, and then you end up buying the second or third book without knowing?
This wasn't even one of them. I have no excuse.
So, cursing my stupidity, I promptly got the first book on my Kindle and yadda yadda. I stuck my bookmark in the first page of Underworld (at least they matched) and it stayed like that for days while I trudged through this first book, unable to wait for the day when I could once again hold a physical book in my hands.
The minute I finished Abandon a few minutes ago I rushed to get Underworld where it had been gathering dust to finally, finally read it!
But then I felt guilty I hadn't written a review for the first book first, and by the time I finished the second I would probably get the plots mixed together.
This book wasn't slow, or fast, or boring. It was just okay.
It was a pleasant read, I guess, but there isn't much in terms of plot--or at least if there was, I couldn't pick it out among the 300-ish pages of meandering along in Pierce's life (by the way, who names their kid that?!).
Pierce and her mom, after her parents' divorce, move from Connecticut to Isla Huesos in Florida, which literally means "Island of Bones." There, her grandmother and her uncle Chris (who's just been released after roughly seventeen or sixteen years in prison, I think) and her cousin Alex are nearby.
Errmm...
I'm not even sure how to review this. I mean, the whole book is really disjointed, especially Pierce's voice, in the beginning.
It was really annoying in the first 80% of the book where Pierce would suddenly start talking about an event that happened who-knows-how-long ago, and then very abruptly start narrating the present again. Considering this book was written in past tense and she used the same tense to recall something from the past (with a few exceptions later on), it was very, very confusing to read.
Her thought process and prose is also disjointed. I had a hard time following along with what she was trying to say and it was very dodgy and flighty, going from one subject to the next and then commenting on this topic and then another topic, etc. It confuses me just trying to explain it.
She also kept talking about "that incident" and then "the other incident which is not the same as that incident," etc., and it was just confusing the heck out of me. Gosh, girl, what is wrong with your mind?
Pierce was also pretty stupid about a lot of things, in ways that make me think she has no idea how to socialize at all. I can't name any examples right now, but really, I think Meg Cabot is trying to give her every excuse under the sun about her weird behaviors being related to her near-death experience. Does everyone who dies and then comes back really this weird? (I don't mean to offend, but really, her behavior is portrayed so weird.) There were also other stupid things she did, like having a soda addiction when her neurologist explicitly told her not to have any caffeine.
Good gracious, why would you do that to yourself?
John was a weird guy who liked to kidnap Pierce frequently, apparently fell in love with her when she was seven according to her grandma, and very moody and liked to brood a lot. But I still liked him, even though I can see why a lot of people don't. (I can't help it, I'm a sucker for the dark broody types who just want to be loved! But don't worry about my mental health, I realize he can be creepy and I only sort of like him.)
Pierce's ex-best friend Hannah Chang was, in my opinion, unnecessarily killed off. It just depressed me and also creeped me out. Not to mention Pierce was a freaking jerk(!!!) to her right after she (Pierce) died for no reason. Really, Pierce?! Are you that much of a screw-up?!
#SPOILERS
Mr. Mueller, you freaking creep! What kind of thirty-something guy who is a TEACHER hits on and has an affair with a student who is 16 at most and then breaks up with her and GAH!!! HANNAH YOU STUPID GIRL WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!
Seriously, what was the point of that?
Supposedly, it's this:
In this world, "Furies" are any spirits that hate John (ruler of his own underworld) and possess weak-minded humans in order to hurt him.
So, they possess people to hurt Pierce, because he loves her so much.
And Pierce has this whole "OMG I JUST FIGURED IT OUT!!!!" moment where she's like "I CAN'T BELIEVE I DIDN'T REALIZE THIS SOONER!!!"
So the thing is, a Fury possesses Mr. Mueller, a basketball coach, seduces her ex-best friend Hannah, and then dumps her so she'll commit suicide...Really?
Uh huh. A Fury did all that just to hurt you, Pierce. So legit. Like really, really so legit.
WTF.
And more spoilers:
They possessed her grandma...who knitted her a scarf with super-duper long tassels...so she could drown in a pool. Because she just knew Pierce would go by her backyard pool wearing that thing...
The freaking plot twist, man, if you can even call it that, what the heck? That was the most lame, epic fail I've ever seen in any book. EVER.
#END SPOILERS
If you avoided the spoilers, basically, the plot points in this book were weak, useless, etc. Essentially, this book really had no plot.
The "climax" is super-duper lame, and it'll let you down oh so much.
I also had issue with Pierce's mom, who, though she claimed to be an environmentalist did stupid things like leave a fancy artificial waterfall on during all hours of the day, and took huge, super long showers. She was also defensive and rude and immature in general, especially about the divorce and Pierce's father, who actually wasn't that bad of a guy in comparison to her. She was too happy blaming everything about Pierce's death and other things on him (which really, he couldn't have helped that much about Pierce), but the minute he accuses her of things that she very much did, she pins more blame on him and claims everything is his fault and ugh. I hate that cow.
Pierce was also extremely ungrateful to her dad. I mean, he helped her settle a seven-figure lawsuit because of something stupid SHE did.
SEVEN FIGURES!
$1,000,000+!
Do you know how much you could do with that money, you ungrateful little *****?!
But no, all she gives him is attitude, a happy smile because she is happy (I don't even remember or care about what), and then she even gets rid of all his expensive shoes that have tassels on them because she has some sort of issue with tassels since her teacher wore them. Oh my gosh. She is that messed up. He's really upset, and all she does is talk back and smile.
Thinking back, I really do want to throttle this girl, kind deeds to random animals drowning in pools or not.
You probably shouldn't read this book and I have no idea why I'm giving in three stars, but there you go.
Just reviewing it is making my brain go really loopy.
Oh well. Onto the next book!
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