Week 19
I seem to have gone down a bit of a thriller rabbit hole, which is always a dangerous place to be. I like thrillers and mysteries, but it’s a hard genre to get right, and it seems like it so often is steeped in ableism and other bigotries.
Ah well. Every so often I find a gem, I suppose.
#28) THE BEAUTIFUL by Renée Ahdieh
The problem with reading a generally good but not necessarily exceptional book, followed by an enraging book (more on that below), is that I am now struggling to recall enough details to write a review. Which is perhaps a review in itself.
As a vampire YA story, it’s decent enough. The setting is good, the characters are mostly pretty interesting, and I liked the whole idea of La Cour des Lions as being a bit of a hub for people who don’t “fit in” with mainstream society, though I could have done with a lot more of this theme, thanks.
I was invested enough in the mystery and the plot while I was reading it. I’m moderately curious where the story might go from here, but not so much that I’m convinced I will be picking up the next book - maybe if I have the time.
I do think that the romance advances a little quickly, and that the characters get to the “in love” stage unbelievably fast. I didn’t buy it, and though I liked the development that was there, this underpinned some of the tension. Furthermore, the budding love triangle element (or what I assume is going to bud into a love triangle because why else is it here) just sits strangely with the rest of the book, and frustrated me as I read.
#29) THERE’S SOMEONE INSIDE YOUR HOUSE by Stephanie Perkins
For a YA by someone who primarily writes romance, this book was surprisingly grim.
Honestly, though, that’s a your-mileage-may-vary thing. I personally found it increasingly depressing to watch characters that I had sympathy for get horrifically murdered, in quite a large number. Obviously, I knew I was reading a thriller, but the fact that these deaths weren’t necessarily given, in my opinion, the weight they would have, it left a weird taste in my mouth.
I’ve seen a couple reviews that critiqued the amount of romance in this book, but I actually didn’t mind it. You can tell that the author knows her way around a romance; the development of it feels fairly natural and is genuinely pretty sweet. Also, it’s refreshing to see YA protagonists having sex without consequences, and kind of humorous that having sex actually kind of saves the protagonist’s life at one point.
The main issue that I had with the book is that the killer and the mystery are both too much and not enough. The reveal is disappointing, and happens so early on that it strips some of the tension out of the book. Yet, simultaneously, the killer’s methods are so over-the-top that it defies belief. A teenager killing for the first time managing to seamlessly sneak into people’s homes and conduct elaborate psychological warfare before killing them on a theme? Please.
It’s an overly Hollywood-ized version of crime and serial killers. It’s a story that relies on an explanation of “some people are just crazy I guess” for scares, for the label of “psychopath” to do all its heavy lifting for it. I’m just bored by this kind of casual ableism in books, and thrillers especially. It’s lazy. Do better, thriller writers.